STUDY OBJECTIVE The study aimed to evaluate the impact of focused health education on the hospital prevalence of a seasonal ataxic syndrome which occurs exclusively in people of low income after eating the larvae of Anaphe venata Butler (Lepidoptera, Notodontidae). DESIGN Retrospective impact evaluation study. SETTING Wesley Guild Hospital, Ilesha, western Nigeria from where the syndrome wa...

At the end of my term of office as Editor-in-Chief of Acta Otorhinolaryngologica Italica, i should like to briefly recall some of the results achieved. The principal aim indicated by the Board of the italian Society of otorhinolaryngology – head and neck Surgery (Sio) was to work towards the journal which had then only recently been published in English under the Editor-in-Chief, at that time D...

We present the results of optical and infrared photometry of the quiescent X-ray transient V404 Cyg during the period 1992–2003. The ellipsoidal modulations extracted from the most complete databases (years 1992, 1998 and 2001) show unequal maxima and minima with relative strength varying from year to year although their peak to peak amplitudes remain roughly constant at 0.24±0.01 magnitudes. F...

BACKGROUND Previous studies have found concurrent declines in blood pressure, serum cholesterol levels, and the incidence of and mortality from coronary disease. However, the effects of changes in diet and lifestyle on trends in coronary disease are largely unknown. METHODS We followed 85,941 women who were 34 to 59 years old and had no previously diagnosed cardiovascular disease or cancer fr...

BACKGROUND Liver fluke infection caused by the parasite Opisthorchis viverrini (O. viverrini), a human carcinogen, is endemic in north-eastern Thailand and remains a major health problem. OBJECTIVES The objectives of the study were to (1) resurvey the prevalence of O. viverrini infection in a field site from the Khon Kaen Cohort Study (in newly recruited subjects as well as previous cohort su...

BACKGROUND Inability to intubate and ventilate patients with respiratory failure is associated with significant morbidity and mortality. A patient is considered to have a difficult airway if an anesthesiologist or other health care provider experienced in airway management is unable to ventilate the patient's lungs using bag-mask ventilation and/or is unable to intubate the trachea using direct...

OBJECTIVE California's comprehensive tobacco control programme was 13 years old in 2002; by then, children entering adolescence at the start of the programme were young adults. This study examines whether adolescent smoking declined over this period, whether any decline carried through to young adulthood, and whether it was specific to California. SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS Most data were from ...

BACKGROUND The incidence of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) has risen steadily during the last few decades in all geographic regions covered by cancer registration for reasons that remain unknown. The aims of this study were to assess the relative contributions of age, period and cohort effects to NHL incidence patterns and therefore to provide clues to explain the increasing incidence. METHODS ...