Computer-Aided Diagnosis of Vertebral Compression Fractures Using Convolutional Neural Networks and Radiomics

Journal of Digital Imaging - Vertebral Compression Fracture (VCF) occurs when the vertebral body partially collapses under the action of compressive forces. Non-traumatic VCFs can be secondary to...     

Health Literacy,Knowledge on Cervical Cancer and Pap Smear and Its Influence on Pre-Marital Malay Muslim Women Attitude towards Pap Smear

Background: Cervical cancer is preventable. In Malaysia, women are found to have good awareness of the disease and yet, the Pap smear uptake is still poor. Measuring health literacy level could explain this discrepancy. This study aims to determine the relationship between health literacy, level of knowledge of cervical cancer and Pap smear with attitude towards Pap smear among women attending pre-marital course. Methods: A cross sectional study was performed in three randomly selected centres that organised pre-marital courses. All Malay Muslim women participants aged 18 to 40 years old were recruited while non-Malaysian, illiterate, and had hysterectomy were excluded. Validated self-administered questionnaires used were European Health Literacy Questionnaire (HLS-EU-Q16 Malay) and Knowledge and attitude towards Cervical Cancer and Pap Smear Questionnaire. The mean percentage score (mean± SD) was calculated, with higher scores showed better outcomes. Multiple linear regression was used to measure the relationship of independent variables with attitude towards Pap smear. Results: A total of 417 participants were recruited with a mean age of 24.9 ± 3.56 years old. Prevalence of awareness of cervical cancer was 91.6% (n=382, 95% CI: 89.0%, 94.2%) and mean percentage score was 74.7%±7.6. Prevalence of awareness of Pap smear was 59.0% (n=246, 95% CI: 54.2%, 63.8%) and mean percentage score was 80.2% ± 6.5. The health literacy mean score was 13.3±3.6, with minimum score 0 and maximum score 16. The mean percentage score of attitudes towards Pap smear was 64.8%±9.3. Multiple linear regression analysis demonstrated significant relationship between health literacy (p=0.047) and knowledge of Pap smear (p<0.001) with attitude towards Pap smear. Conclusion: A higher health literacy with high knowledge of Pap smear improves the attitude towards Pap smear. Pre-marital course is an opportunistic platform to disseminate information to improve health literacy and knowledge of cervical cancer and Pap smear screening.     

Work related injuries in Qatar: a framework for prevention and control

Work related injuries (WRIs) are a growing public health concern that remains under-recognized, inadequately addressed and largely unmeasured in low and middle-income countries (LMIC’s). However, even in high-income countries, such as those in Gulf Cooperating Council (GCC) like Qatar, there are challenges in assuring the health and safety of its labor population. Countries in the GCC have been rapidly developing as a result of the economic boom from the petrochemical industry during the early seventies. Economic prosperity has propelled the migration of workers from less developed countries to make up for the human resource deficiency to develop its infrastructure, service and hospitality industries. Although these countries have gradually made huge gains in health, economy and human development index, including improvements in life expectancy, education, and standard of living, there remains a high incidence of work-related injuries especially in jobs in the construction and petrochemical sector. Currently, there is scarcity of literature on work-related injuries, especially empirical studies documenting the burden, characteristics and risk factors of work injuries and the work injured population, which includes large numbers of migrant workers in many GCC countries. This paper will focus on the current understanding of WRIs in those countries and identify the gaps in current approaches to workplace injury prevention, outlining current status of WRI prevention efforts in Qatar, and propose a framework of concerted action by multi-sectoral engagement.     

Occlusal changes of Class II malocclusion treatment between Fränkel and the eruption guidance appliances

The objective of this study was to compare the occlusal changes of Class II malocclusion treatment provided by two different types of appliances. Group 1 comprised 25 patients treated with the Fr?nkel appliance and group 2 comprised 30 patients treated with the eruption guidance appliance. Evaluations were performed on the initial and final study models of the patients using the peer assessment rating (PAR) index. The final mean PAR index, the mean PAR change, and the percent PAR reduction of each group were compared using the Student's t-test. Results demonstrated that there were no statistically significant differences between the final PAR index, the PAR changes, and the percent PAR reduction of the two groups. Therefore, it was concluded that the occlusal changes provided by the two appliances are similar, as evaluated by the PAR index.