The Journal of family practice
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Research strongly supports the view that pregnancy termination is seldom associated with adverse psychological sequelae in the short to medium term, but experience shows that there is a small group of women who experience long and intense suffering. This is a report of the cases of two women who presented with psychological problems associated with a termination 19 and 5 years earlier.
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Comparative Study
Diagnosing left lower lobe pneumonia: usefulness of the 'spine sign' on lateral chest radiographs.
Left lower lobe pneumonia may be obscured by the heart on the postero-anterior (PA) chest radiograph. In such cases, the lateral projection may be helpful, especially if it exhibits the "spine sign", which is an interruption in the progressive increase in lucency of the vertebral bodies from superior to inferior. We investigated whether the spine sign would help family physicians diagnose left lower lobe pneumonia on chest radiographs. ⋯ In this study of family physicians, the lateral chest radiograph did not improve overall diagnostic accuracy in patients with left lower lobe pneumonia. Among pneumonia patients with the spine sign, however, the lateral view was often helpful.
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Little is known about substance use and substance use disorders among primary care patients with chronic back pain. This study compared groups of patients with and without chronic back pain for the prevalence of substance use and substance use disorders. It also assessed the temporal relationship between the onset of chronic back pain and that of substance use disorders. ⋯ Chronic back pain did not connote special risk for current substance use disorders.