OBJECTIVE To assess the performance of rapid HIV antibody tests when used as part of a home-based community wide counseling and testing strategy in northern Malawi. DESIGN A cross-sectional population survey of HIV infection, 2007 to 2008. METHODS Adults aged 15 years or older in a demographic surveillance area were counseled and then offered an HIV test at their home by government-certifie...

UNLABELLED The usefulness of diagnostic tests, that is their ability to detect a person with disease or exclude a person without disease, is usually described by terms such as sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value and negative predictive value. In this article, the first of the series, a simple, practical explanation of these concepts is provided and their use and misuse discussed...

Malnutrition is common in older adults and often goes unrecognised and untreated. Australian evidence-based guidelines for the management of malnutrition indicate that only the Mini Nutritional Assessment short form (MNA-sf) and Rapid Screen are recommended for use as malnutrition screening tools in the rehabilitation setting. The aim of this secondary analysis was to assess the validity and re...

BACKGROUND It appears that two forms of appendicitis exist. Preoperative distinction between the two is essential to optimize treatment outcome. This study aimed to develop a scoring system to accurately determine the severity of appendicitis in children. MATERIALS AND METHODS Historical cohort study of pediatric patients (aged 0-17 y old) with appendicitis treated between January 2010 and De...

Rapid and easy determination of protective neutralization antibody (NAb) against rabies in the field is very important for an early and effective response to rabies in both animal and human health sectors. The rapid neutralizing antibody detection test (RAPINA), first developed in 2009 and then improved in 2012, is a quick test allowing detection of 0.5 IU/ml antibodies in human and animal sera...

The performance of StrepB Carrot Broth (SCB) versus group B Lim broth (LIM) for detection of group B streptococcus (GBS) colonization status in near-term pregnant women (35 to 37 weeks of gestation) was evaluated. Dually collected vaginal/rectal swabs from 279 women enrolled from a single large maternity clinic were analyzed. Fifty (18%) women were colonized by GBS according to both methods. SC...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE Late preterm infants (LPIs) (gestation 34 weeks and 0 days to 36 weeks and 6 days) compared with full-term infants (FTIs) are at increased risk for mortality and short- and long-term morbidity. The objective of this study was to assess the neurodevelopmental outcomes in a longitudinal cohort study of LPIs from infancy to school age and determine predictive values of ear...

BACKGROUND The Questionnaire for Identifying Children With Chronic Conditions (QuICCC) is an instrument based on a conceptual noncategorical definition that uses parental responses to identify children with chronic conditions for epidemiological purposes. OBJECTIVES To determine whether the QuICCC is sufficiently valid, sensitive, and specific to be used to identify individual children as hav...

BACKGROUND We recently reported an ECG algorithm for differential diagnosis of regular wide QRS complex tachycardias that was superior to the Brugada algorithm. OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to further simplify the algorithm by omitting the complicated morphologic criteria and restricting the analysis to lead aVR. METHODS In this study, 483 wide QRS complex tachycardias [351 ventr...

BACKGROUND Developmental monitoring of children is an important strategy for the early detection and management of intellectual disabilities (ID) in high-income countries. This review summarizes the literature on identifying children with ID in low- and middle-income (LAMI) countries. MATERIALS AND METHODS Electronic literature database searches were conducted to identify articles in the Engl...