Educational outreach to general practitioners reduces children's asthma symptoms: a cluster randomised controlled trial

BACKGROUND:Childhood asthma is common in Cape Town, a province of South Africa, but is underdiagnosed by general practitioners. Medications are often prescribed inappropriately, and care is episodic. The objective of this study is to assess the impact of educational outreach to general practitioners on asthma symptoms of children in their practice. METHODS: This is a cluster randomised trial with general practices as the unit of intervention, randomisation, and analysis. The setting is Mitchells Plain (population 300,000), a dormitory town near Cape Town. Solo general practitioners, without nurse support, operate from storefront practices. Caregiver-reported symptom data were collected for 318 eligible children (2 to 17 years) with moderate to severe asthma, who were attending general practitioners in Mitchells Plain. One year post-intervention follow-up data were collected for 271 (85%) of these children in all 43 practices.Practices randomised to intervention (21) received two 30-minute educational outreach visits by a trained pharmacist who left materials describing key interventions to improve asthma care. Intervention and control practices received the national childhood asthma guideline. Asthma severity was measured in a parent-completed survey administered through schools using a symptom frequency and severity scale. We compared intervention and control group children on the change in score from pre-to one-year post-intervention. RESULTS: Symptom scores declined an additional 0.84 points in the intervention vs. control group (on a nine-point scale. p = 0.03). For every 12 children with asthma exposed to a doctor allocated to the intervention, one extra child will have substantially reduced symptoms. CONCLUSION: Educational outreach was accepted by general practitioners and was effective. It could be applied to other health care quality problems in this setting

Primary Cutaneous Melanoma-Management in 2024

Background: Maximizing survival for patients with primary cutaneous melanomas (melanomas) depends on an early diagnosis and appropriate management. Several new drugs have been shown to improve survival in high-risk melanoma patients. Despite well-documented guidelines, many patients do not receive optimal management, particularly when considering patient age. Objective: to provide an update on melanoma management from the time of the decision to biopsy a suspicious skin lesion. Methods: We reviewed melanoma-management research published between 2018 and 2023 and identified where such findings impact and update the management of confirmed melanomas. Pubmed, Google Scholar, Ovid and Cochrane Library were used as search tools. Results: We identified 81 publications since 2017 that have changed melanoma management; 11 in 2018, 12 in 2019, 10 in 2020, 12 in 2021, 17 in 2022 and 18 in 2023. Discussion: Delayed or inaccurate diagnosis is more likely to occur when a partial shave or punch biopsy is used to obtain the histopathology. Wherever feasible, a local excision with a narrow margin should be the biopsy method of choice for a suspected melanoma. The Breslow thickness of the melanoma remains the single most important predictor of outcome, followed by patient age and then ulceration. The BAUSSS biomarker, (Breslow thickness, Age, Ulceration, Subtype, Sex and Site) provides a more accurate method of determining mortality risk than older currently employed approaches, including sentinel lymph node biopsy. Patients with metastatic melanomas and/or nodal disease should be considered for adjuvant drug therapy (ADT). Further, high-risk melanoma patients are increasingly considered for ADT, even without disease spread. Invasive melanomas less than 1 mm thick are usually managed with a radial excision margin of 10 mms of normal skin. If the thickness is 1 to 2 mm, select a radial margin of 10 to 20 mm. When the Breslow thickness is over 2 mm, a 20 mm clinical margin is usually undertaken. In situ melanomas are usually managed with a 5 to 10 mm margin or Mohs margin control surgery. Such wide excisions around a given melanoma is the only surgery that can be regarded as therapeutic and required. Patients who have had one melanoma are at increased risk of another melanoma. Ideal ongoing management includes regular lifelong skin checks. Total body photography should be considered if the patient has many naevi, especially when atypical/dysplastic naevi are identified. Targeted approaches to improve occupational or lifestyle exposure to ultraviolet light are important. Management also needs to include the consideration of vitamin D supplementary therapy

Erratic tacrolimus exposure, assessed using the standard deviation of trough blood levels, predicts chronic lung allograft dysfunction and survival

Background Erratic tacrolimus blood levels are associated with liver and kidney graft failure. We hypothesized that erratic tacrolimus exposure would similarly compromise lung transplant outcomes. This study assessed the effect of tacrolimus mean and standard deviation (SD) levels on the risk of chronic lung allograft dysfunction (CLAD) and death after lung transplantation. Methods We retrospectively reviewed 110 lung transplant recipients who received tacrolimus-based immunosuppression. Cox proportional hazard modeling was used to investigate the effect of tacrolimus mean and SD levels on survival and CLAD. At census, 48 patients (44%) had developed CLAD and 37 (34%) had died. Results Tacrolimus SD was highest for the first 6 post-transplant months (median, 4.01; interquartile range [IQR], 3.04-4.98 months) before stabilizing at 2.84 μg/liter (IQR, 2.16-4.13 μg/liter) between 6 and 12 months. The SD then remained the same (median, 2.85; IQR, 2.00-3.77 μg/liter) between 12 and 24 months. A high mean tacrolimus level 6 to 12 months post-transplant independently reduced the risk of CLAD (hazard ratio [HR], 0.74; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.63-0.86; p < 0.001) but not death (HR, 0.96; 95% CI, 0.83-1.12; p = 0.65). In contrast, a high tacrolimus SD between 6 and 12 months independently increased the risk of CLAD (HR, 1.46; 95% CI, 1.23-1.73; p < 0.001) and death (HR, 1.27; 95% CI, 1.08-1.51; p = 0.005). Conclusions Erratic tacrolimus levels are a risk factor for poor lung transplant outcomes. Identifying and modifying factors that contribute to this variability may significantly improve outcomes

Influences on pre-hospital delay in the diagnosis of colorectal cancer: a systematic review

Colorectal cancer is a major global health problem, with survival varying according to stage at diagnosis. Delayed diagnosis can result from patient, practitioner or hospital delay. This paper reports the results of a review of the factors influencing pre-hospital delay – the time between a patient first noticing a cancer symptom and presenting to primary care or between first presentation and referral to secondary care. A systematic methodology was applied, including extensive searches of the literature published from 1970 to 2003, systematic data extraction, quality assessment and narrative data synthesis. Fifty-four studies were included. Patients' non-recognition of symptom seriousness increased delay, as did symptom denial. Patient delay was greater for rectal than colon cancers and the presence of more serious symptoms, such as pain, reduced delay. There appears to be no relationship between delay and patients' age, sex or socioeconomic status. Initial misdiagnosis, inadequate examination and inaccurate investigations increased practitioner delay. Use of referral guidelines may reduce delay, although evidence is currently limited. No intervention studies were identified. If delayed diagnosis is to be reduced, there must be increased recognition of the significance of symptoms among patients, and development and evaluation of interventions that are designed to ensure appropriate diagnosis and examination by practitioners

Risk Factors for Hepatitis C Infection Among Sexually Transmitted Disease-Infected, Inner City Obstetric Patients

Objective: To test the hypothesis that our inner city obstetric patients who have been infected with sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) will have a higher prevalence of hepatitis C virus infection than the general population and to identify specific risk factors and high-risk groups. Methods: All patients in our prenatal clinic (July 1997–April 1999) who tested positive for one or more STDs were asked to return for hepatitis C antibody testing. Medical charts of all patients who returned for hepatitis C testing were reviewed. Results: A total of 106 patients with STDs were tested for hepatitis C. Positive screening tests for anti-hepatitis C antibody were found in 6.6% (7/106) of the patients (95% CI = 2.7–13.1%). This frequency is significantly higher than the hepatitis C prevalence (1.8%) in the general United States population (p = 0.006). Multiple logistic regression analysis confirmed only older age (p = 0.016) and positive HIV status (p = 0.023) to be significant predictors of hepatitis C infection. Conclusions: Inner city STD-infected obstetric patients are at high risk for hepatitis C infection compared with the general population. Increasing age and HIV-positive status are risk factors which are significantly associated with hepatitis C infection

Time-trend of melanoma screening practice by primary care physicians: A meta-regression analysis

Objective. To assess whether the proportion of primary care physicians implementing full body skin examination (FBSE) to screen for melanoma changed over time. Methods. Meta-regression analyses of available data. Data Sources: MEDLINE, ISI, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials. Results. Fifteen studies surveying 10,336 physicians were included in the analyses. Overall, 15%\u201382% of them reported to perform FBSE to screen for melanoma. The proportion of physicians using FBSE screening tended to decrease by 1.72% per year (P =0.086). Corresponding annual changes in European, North American, and Australian settings were 120.68% (P =0.494), 122.02% (P =0.044), and +2.59% (P =0.010), respectively. Changes were not influenced by national guide-lines. Conclusions. Considering the increasing incidence of melanoma and other skin malignancies, as well as their relative potential consequences, the FBSE implementation time-trend we retrieved should be considered a worrisome phenomenon

The Prevalence of Sexually Transmitted Infections in Papua New Guinea: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Patellofemoral osteoarthritis (PF OA) is more prevalent than previously thought and contributes to patient's suffering from knee OA. Synthesis of prevalence data can provide estimates of the burden of PF OA

Factors influencing the speed of cancer diagnosis in rural Western Australia: A General Practice perspective

Introduction. The speed of diagnosis impacts on prognosis and survival in all types of cancer. In most cases survival and prognosis are significantly worse in rural and remote Australian populations who have less access to diagnostic and therapeutic services than metropolitan communities in this country. Research suggests that in general delays in diagnosis were a factor of misdiagnosis, the confounding effect of existing conditions and delayed or misleading investigation of symptoms. The aim of this study is to further explore the factors that impact on the speed of diagnosis in rural Western Australia with direct reference to General Practitioners (GPs) working in this setting. Methods. The methodology consisted of a structured discussion of specific cases. GPs based in two rural locations in Western Australia were asked to identify up to eight clinical cases for discussion. A diversity of cases was requested encompassing those with timely and delayed diagnosis of cancer. Focus groups were held with the practitioners to identify which factors under six headings delayed or facilitated the diagnosis in each case. A structured summary of the discussion was relayed to a wider group of GPs to seek additional views or comments on specific factors that impact on the speed of cancer diagnosis in rural and remote locations in Australia. Results. A number of factors affecting the speed of diagnosis were identified: the demographic shift towards a frailer and older population, presenting with multiple and complex diseases, increases the challenge to identify early cancer symptoms; seasonal and demanding work patterns leading to procrastination in presenting for medical care; unhelpful scheduling of specialist appointments; and the varying impact of informal networks and social relationships. Conclusion. Within the limitations of this study we have generated a number of hypotheses that require formal evaluation: (1) GPs working within informal professional and social networks are better informed about their patients' health needs and have an advantage in making early diagnosis; (2) Despite the other differences in the population characteristics decentralising services would improve the prospect for timely diagnosis; and (3) Careful coordination of specialist appointments would improve the speed of diagnosis for rural patients. © 2007 Jiwa et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd

Cutaneous lesions of the nose

Skin diseases on the nose are seen in a variety of medical disciplines. Dermatologists, otorhinolaryngologists, general practitioners and general plastic and dermatologic surgeons are regularly consulted regarding cutaneous lesions on the nose. This article is the second part of a review series dealing with cutaneous lesions on the head and face, which are frequently seen in daily practice by a dermatologic surgeon. In this review, we focus on those skin diseases on the nose where surgery or laser therapy is considered a possible treatment option or that can be surgically evaluated