BACKGROUND The United States (U.S.) approved use of federal funds for needle and syringe programs (NSPs) in December 2009. This study compares syringe disposal practices in a U.S. city with NSPs to a U.S. city without NSPs by examining the prevalence of improperly discarded syringes in public places and the self-reported syringe disposal practices of injection drug users (IDUs) in the two citie...

Methods. We enrolled 19 ASA I–II patients undergoing hand or forearm surgery. The four nerves of the axillary plexus were identified with ultrasound guidance. Lidocaine 1.5% with epinephrine 1:200 000 was loaded into a syringe driver. A 22 G needle was inserted in the long axis to each nerve and injection commenced using the bolus function (600 ml h). The needle was repositioned until the nerve...

OBJECTIVE The present randomized controlled trial compared arthrocentesis of the effusive knee followed by corticosteroid injection performed by the conventional anatomic landmark palpation-guided technique to the same procedure performed with ultrasound (US) needle guidance. METHODS Sixty-four palpably effusive knees were randomized to (i) palpation-guided arthrocentesis with a conventional ...

BACKGROUND Many people who inject drugs (PWID) use syringes with detachable needles, which have high dead space (HDS). Contaminated HDS blood may substantially contribute to the transmission of HIV, hepatitis C (HCV), and other blood-borne viruses within this population. Newly designed low dead space (LDS) syringe-needle combinations seek to reduce blood-borne virus transmission among PWID. We ...

We introduce a 15 cm, 26-gauge spinal needle (Steriseal Ltd, Redditch) through a standard Tuohy needle (9·6 cm, 16-gauge) which has its tip in the epidural space. Once the dura has been punctured the spinal needle is only really held in place by the dura. It is therefore quite difficult to attach the syringe of local anaesthetic and then inject without inadvertently placing the tip of the spina...

Aims: In most countries, the spread of HIV and hepatitis C in prisons is clearly driven by injecting drug use with many infected prisoners who are unaware of their infection status. Despite many studies confirming the facts about risk behaviour and the prison setting as a risk environment for maintaining or taking up of risk behaviour, little progress has been made around effective and efficien...

The importance of post-mortem examination is generally accepted, not only for instruction and research, but also for raising the standard of medical practice. Unfortunately, there are many obstacles. In hospital, necropsies are limited by the natural reluctance of many relatives to give the necessary permission. In nursing homes and private houses, they are seldom performed because of the addit...