Clinical and investigative medicine. Médecine clinique et experimentale
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Comparative Study
Chronic pulmonary disease in rural women exposed to biomass fumes.
Biomass (organic) fuels cause indoor air pollution when used inside dwellings. We evaluated the frequencies of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and chronic bronchitis (CB) among rural women using biomass fuels for heating and cooking and compared them to women living in urban areas where such fuels are not used. ⋯ Rural women exposed to biomass fumes are more likely to suffer from CB and COPD than urban women even though the prevalence of smoking is higher among the latter group.
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Modified Duke criteria were applied to consecutive injection drug users (IDUs) who were admitted to an inner-city hospital with a clinical suspicion of infective endocarditis, and the presence of any other clinical variables that were predictive of the presence of infective endocarditis was determined. ⋯ Among IDUs, the modified Duke criteria are useful for classifying cases with definite infective endocarditis and rejecting cases without infective endocarditis. The classification of possible infective endocarditis is suitable for this population.
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Referral pattern is a potential confounding factor when waiting-list performance is reported across hospitals or periods. A common concern is the ability to accurately estimate proportions of patients undergoing surgery in the recommended time without considering emergency caseload. In this study, the relation between emergency referrals and the rate of elective admissions to hospital within the recommended time was estimated. ⋯ When there is an increase in the number of emergency cases, a lower proportion of patients undergo elective surgery within the recommended time. Thus, when performance of surgical servces is evaluated, the probability of patients undergoing elective surgery on time should be adjusted relative to the number of emergency referrals.