The cost-effectiveness of the WINGS intervention: a program to prevent HIV and sexually transmitted diseases among high-risk urban women

BACKGROUND: We evaluated the cost-effectiveness of the WINGS project, an intervention to prevent HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases among urban women at high risk for sexual acquisition of HIV. METHODS: We used standard methods of cost-effectiveness analysis. We conducted a retrospective analysis of the intervention's cost and we used a simplified model of HIV transmission to estimate the number of HIV infections averted by the intervention. We calculated cost-effectiveness ratios for the complete intervention and for the condom use skills component of the intervention. RESULTS: Under base case assumptions, the intervention prevented an estimated 0.2195 new cases of HIV at a cost of $215,690 per case of HIV averted. When indirect costs of HIV were excluded from the analysis, the intervention's cost-effectiveness ratios were$357,690 per case of HIV averted and $31,851 per quality-adjusted life year (QALY) saved. Under base case assumptions, the condom use skills component of the intervention prevented an estimated 0.1756 HIV infections and was cost-saving. When indirect HIV costs were excluded, the cost-effectiveness ratios for the condom use skills component of the intervention were$97,404 per case of HIV averted and $8,674 per QALY saved. CONCLUSIONS: The WINGS intervention, particularly the two sessions of the intervention which focussed on condom use skills, could be cost-effective in preventing HIV among women

Skin Lesions on Common Bottlenose Dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) from Three Sites in the Northwest Atlantic, USA

Skin disease occurs frequently in many cetacean species across the globe; methods to categorize lesions have relied on photo-identification (photo-id), stranding, and by-catch data. The current study used photo-id data from four sampling months during 2009 to estimate skin lesion prevalence and type occurring on bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) from three sites along the southeast United States coast [Sarasota Bay, FL (SSB); near Brunswick and Sapelo Island, GA (BSG); and near Charleston, SC (CHS)]. The prevalence of lesions was highest among BSG dolphins (P = 0.587) and lowest in SSB (P = 0.380), and the overall prevalence was significantly different among all sites (p<0.0167). Logistic regression modeling revealed a significant reduction in the odds of lesion occurrence for increasing water temperatures (OR = 0.92; 95%CI:0.906–0.938) and a significantly increased odds of lesion occurrence for BSG dolphins (OR = 1.39; 95%CI:1.203–1.614). Approximately one-third of the lesioned dolphins from each site presented with multiple types, and population differences in lesion type occurrence were observed (p<0.05). Lesions on stranded dolphins were sampled to determine the etiology of different lesion types, which included three visually distinct samples positive for herpesvirus. Although generally considered non-fatal, skin disease may be indicative of animal health or exposure to anthropogenic or environmental threats, and photo-id data provide an efficient and cost-effective approach to document the occurrence of skin lesions in free-ranging populations

Benign marrow progenitors are enriched in the CD34+/HLA-DRlo population but not in the CD34+/CD38lo population in chronic myeloid leukemia: an analysis using interphase fluorescence in situ hybridization

Fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) was used to discriminate between benign and malignant cells in sorted populations of chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) marrow. FISH has the advantage of allowing for a cell by cell analysis of the breakpoint cluster region (BCR) gene rearrangement immediately after flow sorting in nondividing G0/G1 cells that are potentially transcriptionally inactive. We initially selected CD34+ cells with very low expression of the activation antigen CD38 as a candidate phenotype for an immature and hypothetically more benign cell population, but found no enrichment for Ph negativity in that subtype. In five CML samples, 55% +/- 3.3% (mean +/- SE) of CD34+/CD38hi cells had the BCR gene rearrangement, similar to 57% +/- 3.7% seen in the CD34+/CD38lo population. In contrast, subsequent experiments (n = 4) determined that the CD34+/HLA-DRlo population in CML marrow does contain an increased proportion of benign cells: 15% +/- 1% of the CD34+/DRlo cells were BCR rearranged, compared with 52% +/- 5.8% of the CD34+/DRhi cells (P = .001). Our results indicate that benign progenitors in CML are enriched within the CD34+ cells with low DR antigen expression, but not low CD38 expression. One possible interpretation of these observations is that low CD38 antigen expression is not as useful as low HLA-DR expression for isolating immature cells.</jats:p

Chromosome painting in plants.

The current 'state-of-art' as to chromosome painting in plants is reviewed. We define different situations described as painting so far: i) Genomic in situ hybridisation (GISH) with total genomic DNA to distinguish alien chromosomes on the basis of divergent dispersed repeats, ii) 'Chromosomal in situ suppression' (CISS) hybridisation with chromosome-derived DNA probes and blocking of interchromosomally dispersed repeats by total genomic or C0 t-1 DNA in excess, iii) exceptional cases of single chromosome painting by probes containing chromosome-specific dispersed repeats, and iv) Fluorescence in situ hybridisation (FISH) with extended contigs of large insert clones for painting of those chromosomes of a euploid complement which harbour the cloned sequences. While GISH was successfully applied in most plant hybrids and/or their derivatives, painting of individual chromosomes by CISS hybridisations of chromosome-specific DNA probes have so far not revealed convincing results in plants. The reason for this failure and the use of possible alternative approaches are discussed. At least for small plant genomes, painting by large insert single sequence clones provides a promising alternative tool to solve cytogenetic questions, which up to now could not be tackled otherwise. An example of such a painting is described in detail for Arabidopsis thaliana