OBJECTIVES To compare the clinical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of larval therapy with a standard debridement technique (hydrogel). DESIGN A pragmatic, three-arm, randomised controlled trial with an economic evaluation. SETTING Community nursing services, community leg ulcer clinics and hospital outpatient leg ulcer clinics. A range of urban and rural settings. PARTICIPANTS Patien...

OBJECTIVE This study investigated retrospectively whether three laboratory investigations--testing for leucocyte levels, C-reactive protein (CRP) and erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR)--can be used to guide the decision of when to discontinue larval therapy. METHOD Between 1999 and 2002 we administered larval therapy to 16 inpatients. In all cases the decision to discontinue therapy was a c...

In insects, whilst variations in life cycles are common, the basic patterns typical for particular groups remain generally conserved. One of the more extreme modifications is found in some subterranean beetles of the tribe Leptodirini, in which the number of larval instars is reduced from the ancestral three to two and ultimately one, which is not active and does not feed. We analysed all avail...

Many species of reef fishes form large spawning aggregations that are highly predictable in space and time. Prior research has suggested that aggregating fish derive fitness benefits not just from mating at high density but, also, from oceanographic features of the spatial locations where aggregations occur. Using a probabilistic biophysical model of larval dispersal coupled to a fine resolutio...

Genetic trade-offs such as between generalist-specialist strategies can be masked by changes in compensatory processes involving energy allocation and acquisition which regulation depends on the state of the individual and its ecological surroundings. Failure to account for such state dependence may thus lead to misconceptions about the trade-off structure and nature of constraints governing re...

Introduction: Superficial cancers are one of the most common in humans and animals. The use maggot therapy as an alternative treatment is expanding has achieved great success treating superficial. Maggot extracts secretions have been also demonstrated to beneficial biological effects. present study aimed perform first systematic review maggot, well its extracts, neoplasms. Methods: In current s...

The application of high-resolution genetic data has revealed that oceanographic connectivity in marine species with planktonic larvae can be surprisingly limited, even in the absence of major barriers to dispersal. Australia's southern coast represents a particularly interesting system for studying planktonic larval dispersal, as the hydrodynamic regime of the wide continental shelf has potenti...