Management of LBP at primary care level in South Africa: up to standards?

Background: Primary Health Care (PHC) is well suited for management of low back pain (LBP). Prevalence of (chronic) LBP is suspected to be high among visitors of the South African primary care centers, but currently no information exists on prevalence or guideline adherence.Objectives: To establish if treatment received for LBP in public PHC in the Cape Town area compares with international evidence based guidelines.Methods: Cluster randomization determined the 8 community health centres where the study took place. A measurement tool was developed and validated for this population. Descriptive analysis and logistic regression analytical techniques were applied.Results: 489 participants (mean age: 44.8) were included in this study. Lifetime prevalence was 73.2% and 26.3% suffered from chronic low back pain (CLBP) . Pain medication was the only form of treatment received by 90% of the sample. Interventions received seemed to be unrelated to type of LBP (acute, sub acute and chronic). Referral to physiotherapy, education and advice to stay active were rarely done. Participants expressed low satisfaction with treatment.Conclusions: Current management of LBP at PHC level appears to be ineffective and not conform guidelines. Further South African research should focus on barriers as well as measures to be taken for implementation of LBP guidelines.Keywords: Low back pain, management, guidelines, primary care, South Afric

Prospective evaluation of 92 serum protein biomarkers for early detection of ovarian cancer

Background CA125 is the best available yet insufficiently sensitive biomarker for early detection of ovarian cancer. There is a need to identify novel biomarkers, which individually or in combination with CA125 can achieve adequate sensitivity and specificity for the detection of earlier-stage ovarian cancer. Methods In the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) cohort, we measured serum levels of 92 preselected proteins for 91 women who had blood sampled ≤18 months prior to ovarian cancer diagnosis, and 182 matched controls. We evaluated the discriminatory performance of the proteins as potential early diagnostic biomarkers of ovarian cancer. Results Nine of the 92 markers; CA125, HE4, FOLR1, KLK11, WISP1, MDK, CXCL13, MSLN and ADAM8 showed an area under the ROC curve (AUC) of ≥0.70 for discriminating between women diagnosed with ovarian cancer and women who remained cancer-free. All, except ADAM8, had shown at least equal discrimination in previous case-control comparisons. The discrimination of the biomarkers, however, was low for the lag-time of >9–18 months and paired combinations of CA125 with any of the 8 markers did not improve discrimination compared to CA125 alone. Conclusion Using pre-diagnostic serum samples, this study identified markers with good discrimination for the lag-time of 0–9 months. However, the discrimination was low in blood samples collected more than 9 months prior to diagnosis, and none of the markers showed major improvement in discrimination when added to CA125

Biocontrol Potential of Forest Tree Endophytes

Peer reviewe

A systematic review of posture and psychosocial factors as contributors to upper quadrant musculoskeletal pain in children and adolescents

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A progress evaluation of Extended Degree Programme (EDP) students at Stellenbosch University with the aim to determine the reasons for differences in performance in the consecutive years following on the EDP-programme

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Efecto de un Sistema de Realidad Virtual de Bajo Coste en el Dolor y la Ansiedad en Pacientes con Quemaduras que Siguen un Proceso de Fisioterapia en un País en Vías de desarrollo

El siguiente texto corresponde al abstract de uno de los póster del International Forum on Health Care and and Information Communication Technology (HICT) , celebrado en Barcelona, entre el 8 y el 10 de marzo de 2011. Or ganizado por el Laboratorio de Psicología y Tecnologia (LabPsiTec), de la Universidad Jaume I de Castellón y de la Universidad de Valencia; el Grupo de Psicología, Salud y Red (PSiNET) de la Universitat Oberta de Catalunya y el Centre for Research in Family Health, del IWK Health Centre, de Canadá. Se trata del primer foro internacional de estas características, cuyo objetivo fundamental es crear un espacio común para investigadores, es tudiantes y profesionales del ámbito de la Salud y las Tecnologías de la Información y la Comunicación. Bajo el título Descubriendo la Amplia Gama de Usos de las TIC en la Salud, el Foro pretendía compartir conocimientos y experiencias de investigación para explorar cómo las TIC pueden ser utilizadas en el ámbito de la salud para evaluar, prevenir y gestionar las cuestiones relacionadas con la salud. La Fundación para la eSaludFeSalud, editora de la RevistaeSalud.com, quiso apoyar la celebración de este Foro internacional, mediante la edición en el número 26 de la publicación de los Astract de las conferencias, los pos ters y workshops presentados durante esta reunión científica, contribuyendo de esta forma a la divulgación de actividades científicas relacionadas con la eSalud. La RevistaeSalud.com es, por tanto, la publición científica oficial del HICT 2011

Framing a vision for physiotherapy research: synthesizing educators' viewpoints in Cape Town

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