Persistent demographic differences in colorectal cancer screening utilization despite Medicare reimbursement

BACKGROUND: Colorectal cancer screening is widely recommended, but often under-utilized. In addition, significant demographic differences in screening utilization exist. Insurance coverage may be one factor influencing utilization of colorectal cancer screening tests. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective analysis of claims for outpatient services for Washington state Medicare beneficiaries in calendar year 2000. We determined the proportion of beneficiaries utilizing screening fecal occult blood tests, flexible sigmoidoscopy, colonoscopy, or double contrast barium enema in the overall population and various demographic subgroups. Multiple logistic regression analysis was used to determine the relative odds of screening in different demographic groups. RESULTS: Approximately 9.2% of beneficiaries had fecal occult blood tests, 7.2% had any colonoscopy, flexible sigmoidoscopy, or barium enema (invasive) colon tests, and 3.5% had invasive tests for screening indications. Colonoscopy accounted for 41% of all invasive tests for screening indications. Women were more likely to receive fecal occult blood test screening (OR 1.18; 95%CI 1.15, 1.21) and less likely to receive invasive tests for screening indications than men (OR 0.80, 95%CI 0.77, 0.83). Whites were more likely than other racial groups to receive any type of screening. Rural residents were more likely than urban residents to have fecal occult blood tests (OR 1.20, 95%CI 1.17, 1.23) but less likely to receive invasive tests for screening indications (OR 0.89; 95%CI 0.85, 0.93). CONCLUSION: Reported use of fecal occult blood testing remains modest. Overall use of the more invasive tests for screening indications remains essentially unchanged, but there has been a shift toward increased use of screening colonoscopy. Significant demographic differences in screening utilization persist despite consistent insurance coverage

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency–Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research

International Consensus Statement on Rhinology and Allergy: Rhinosinusitis

Background: The 5 years since the publication of the first International Consensus Statement on Allergy and Rhinology: Rhinosinusitis (ICAR‐RS) has witnessed foundational progress in our understanding and treatment of rhinologic disease. These advances are reflected within the more than 40 new topics covered within the ICAR‐RS‐2021 as well as updates to the original 140 topics. This executive summary consolidates the evidence‐based findings of the document. Methods: ICAR‐RS presents over 180 topics in the forms of evidence‐based reviews with recommendations (EBRRs), evidence‐based reviews, and literature reviews. The highest grade structured recommendations of the EBRR sections are summarized in this executive summary. Results: ICAR‐RS‐2021 covers 22 topics regarding the medical management of RS, which are grade A/B and are presented in the executive summary. Additionally, 4 topics regarding the surgical management of RS are grade A/B and are presented in the executive summary. Finally, a comprehensive evidence‐based management algorithm is provided. Conclusion: This ICAR‐RS‐2021 executive summary provides a compilation of the evidence‐based recommendations for medical and surgical treatment of the most common forms of RS

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Not AvailablePRESENTS RESULTS OF A STUDY CONDUCTED AT AGRA IN YAMUNA RAVINES ON SELECTION OF PROMISING STRAINS OF FORAGE GRASSES. IT SHOWED THAT CENCHRUS CILIARIS WITH HIGHEST PRODUCTION POTENTIAL WAS THE MOST PROMISING GRASS SPECIES , FOLLOWED BY C. SETIGERUS AND P. ANTIDOTALE FOR PASTURE DEVELOPMENT IN YAMUNA RAVINES. D ANNULATUM WITH LESS THAN 1/5th OF PRODUCTION WAS NOT FOUND PROMISING . FOR NORMAL PRODUCTION OF PASTURAGE , REPLANTING OF GRASS EVERY FIFTH YEAR HAS BEEN SUGGESTED.Not Availabl

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Not AvailablePRESENTED ARE THE RESULTS OF AN EXPERIMENT ON ACACIA NILOTICA AND ACACIA TORTILIS RAISED AT THREE SPACINGS VIZ 3 X 3m X 4 X 4M and 5 x 5m WITH FODDER GRASS CENCHRUS CILIARIS SOWN IN THE INTER-SPACES CONDUCTED DURING 1977-92 AT CHALLESAR , AGRA FOR ASCERTAINING FUEL AND FODDER PRODUCTIVITY POTENTIAL OF UNCULTIVABLE DEEP RAVIES. AT THE ROTATION OF 15 YEARS THE CROWNS OF ACACIA NILOTICA TREES MARGINALLY TOUCHED IN SPACINGS OF 3 X 3m AND 4 X 4 m AND THOSE OF A TORTILIS 3 X 3M . THE VALUES OF THE GROWTH PARAMETERS OF BOTH TREES SPECIES WERE MINIMUM ON TOP AND MAXIMUM ON BOTTOM RAVINES. TWENTY PERCENT OF TREES PLANTED ON RAVINE TOP ATTAINED HEIGHT LESS THAN 5m WITH 10 PERCENT OF A NILOTICA AND 24% OF A TORTILIS HAVING BOTH dbh LESS THAN 5cm. FUEL YIELDS WERE HIGHEST , 27 t/ha/year IN A NILOTICA AND 28.7 t/ha/year IN A TORTILIS , 3 X 3m SPACING . PLANTS ON RAVINE SIDES AND BOTTOM YIELDED MORE FUEL THAN ON TOP DEMONSTRATING THAT MICROHABITAT ON GULLY BOTTOM IS MORE CONGENIAL FOR PLANT GROWTH. GRASS YIELDS ( 1.5 TO 2.0 t/ha/year ) APPEARED TO BE INDEPENDENT OF TREE SPACING. IN THE 14th YEAR , THE TOPFEED WAS UPTO 4.2 t/ha . THE MEAN PHYTOMASS PRODUCTION VARIED FROM 3.3 TO 4.6 t/ha/yr.Not Availabl