A new approach to prevent HIV transmission: Project Protect intervention for recently infected individuals

Past research suggests that as many as 50% of onward human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) transmissions occur during acute and recent HIV infection. It is clearly important to develop interventions which focus on this highly infectious stage of HIV infection to prevent further transmission in the risk networks of acutely and recently infected individuals. Project Protect tries to find recently and acutely infected individuals and prevents HIV transmission in their risk networks. Participants are recruited by community health outreach workers at community-based HIV testing sites and drug users' community venues, by coupon referrals and through referrals from AIDS clinics. When a network with acute/recent infection is identified, network members are interviewed about their risky behaviors, network information is collected, and blood is drawn for HIV testing. Participants are also educated and given prevention materials (condoms, syringes, educational materials); HIV-infected participants are referred to AIDS clinics and are assisted with access to care. Community alerts about elevated risk of HIV transmission are distributed within the risk networks of recently infected. Overall, 342 people were recruited to the project and screened for acute/recent HIV infection. Only six index cases of recent infection (2.3% of all people screened) were found through primary screening at voluntary counseling and testing (VCT) sites, but six cases of recent infection were found through contact tracing of these recently infected participants (7% of network members who came to the interview). Combining screening at VCT sites and contact tracing the number of recently infected people we located as compared to VCT screening alone. No adverse events were encountered. These first results provide evidence for the theory behind the intervention, i.e., in the risk networks of recently infected people there are other people with recent HIV infection and they can be successfully located without increasing stigma for project participants.     

Skin closure with 2-octyl cyanoacrylate and polyester mesh after primary total knee arthroplasty offers superior cosmetic outcomes and patient satisfaction compared to staples: a prospective trial

European Journal of Orthopaedic Surgery & Traumatology - The goals of this study were to compare patient satisfaction and wound-related complications in patients receiving 2-octyl cyanoacrylate...     

Chest wall pain following lung stereotactic body radiation therapy using 48 Gy in three fractions: A search for predictors

Purpose

Chest wall pain is an uncommon but bothersome late complication following lung stereotactic body radiation therapy. Despite numerous studies investigating predictors of chest wall pain, no clear consensus has been established for a chest wall constraint. The aim of our study was to investigate factors related to chest wall pain in a homogeneous group of patients treated at our institution.

Exposure to ambient air pollution and the incidence of lung cancer and breast cancer in the Ontario Population Health and Environment Cohort

Lung and female breast cancers are highly prevalent worldwide. Although the association between exposure to ambient fine particulate matter (PM_2.5) and lung cancer has been recognized, there is less evidence for associations with other common air pollutants such as nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) and ozone (O₃). Even less is known about potential associations between these pollutants and breast cancer. We conducted a population-based cohort study to investigate the associations of chronic exposure to PM_2.5, NO₂, O₃ and redox-weighted average of NO₂ and O₃ (O_x) with incident lung and breast cancer, using the Ontario Population Health and Environment Cohort (ONPHEC), which includes all long-term residents aged 35–85 years who lived in Ontario, Canada, 2001–2015. Incident lung and breast cancers were ascertained using the Ontario Cancer Registry. Annual estimates of exposures were assigned to the residential postal codes of subjects for each year during follow-up. We used Cox proportional-hazards models adjusting for personal- and neighborhood-level covariates. Our cohorts for lung and breast cancer analyses included ~4.9 million individuals and ~2.5 million women, respectively. During follow-up, 100,146 incident cases of lung cancer and 91,146 incident cases of breast cancer were diagnosed. The fully adjusted analyses showed positive associations of lung cancer incidence with PM_2.5 (hazard ratio [HR] = 1.02 [95% CI: 1.01–1.05] per 5.3 μg/m³) and NO₂ (HR = 1.05 [95% CI: 1.03–1.07] per 14 ppb). No associations with lung cancer were observed for O₃ or O_x. Relationships between PM_2.5 and NO₂ with lung cancer exhibited a sublinear shape. We did not find compelling evidence linking air pollution to breast cancer.     

佛山市乙型肝炎母婴阻断工作环节问题探讨

目的探讨佛山市乙肝母婴阻断工作中存在的问题，为完善进一步工作提供思路。 方法采用队列研究的方法，以2017年佛山市HBsAg阳性产妇13 672例及其所分娩13 982例活产儿为研究对象，通过回顾性病历采集及前瞻性的随访追踪的方法，全面了解影响乙肝母婴阻断工作的主要因素。 结果2017年佛山市产妇HBsAg阳性率为10.14%，感染孕妇中HBeAg阳性率为24.13%，孕期HBV DNA检测率约5%，其中抗病毒治疗63例；新生儿乙肝免疫球蛋白接种率为99.84%；婴儿在出生后1年内完成乙肝疫苗三针接种的比率为81.71%，在完成三针乙肝疫苗接种的儿童中按照0-1-6程序接种的比率为62.65%；母婴阻断结果追踪率为40.16%，追踪儿童中母婴阻断失败34例，失败率为0.61%；产妇年龄低、HBeAg阳性、HepB未全程及规范接种是母婴阻断失败的危险因素(P<0.05)。儿童明确未检测的主要原因是拒绝检查、不知道要检查、提前检查和检测未提供结果，占99.07%。 结论加强信息沟通及健康教育，落实乙肝病毒感染产妇孕期DNA检测及抗病毒治疗，提高儿童乙肝疫苗的规范接种率，将暴露儿童的乙肝两对半检测纳入儿童保健管理工作，是实现全市乙肝母婴零传播的重要措施。