Croatian medical journal
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Croatian medical journal · Aug 2008
Psychometric properties of Croatian and Slovenian short form of oral health impact profile questionnaires.
To develop Croatian and Slovenian versions of the 14-item Oral Health Impact Profile (OHIP) Questionnaire. ⋯ Psychometric properties of OHIP-CRO14 and OHIP-SVN14 render these instruments suitable for the assessment of Oral Health Related Quality of Life in Croatia and Slovenia.
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Croatian medical journal · Aug 2008
Genome damage in oropharyngeal cancer patients treated by radiotherapy.
To estimate genome damage in oropharyngeal cancer patients before, during, and after radiotherapy and to measure the persistence of caused genome damage relevant in the evaluation of secondary cancer risk. ⋯ Oropharyngeal cancer patients had relatively high levels of primary DNA damage in their peripheral blood lymphocytes even before therapy. The frequency of complex structural chromosome aberrations and the frequency of micronuclei increased with the progression of the radiation cycle and the doses delivered. As the frequency of chromosomal aberrations a year after radiotherapy mostly did not return to pre-therapy values, it represents an important risk factor related to the onset of second cancer.
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Croatian medical journal · Aug 2008
EditorialPsychopharmacotherapy of posttraumatic stress disorder.
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a psychiatric disorder that develops after a psychological trauma usually caused by a situation perceived as deeply threatening to a person's life or integrity. Complex neurobiological changes triggered by such a traumatic and stressful experience may explain a wide range of PTSD symptoms and provide the rationale for psychopharmacological treatment. Selective serotonin-reuptake inhibitors make the first-line treatment of PTSD. ⋯ Other groups of medications, such as serotonin agonists and antagonists, new antidepressants, dual inhibitors of serotonin- and noradrenalin-reuptake, anticonvulsants, and opiate antagonists are also sometimes used in PTSD treatment. However, as shown in the present review, most clinical studies performed to date to investigate the effectiveness of different psychopharmacological agents in the therapy of PTSD have serious limitations in terms of small sample size, lack of blinding and randomization, and small effect size. More rigorously designed, comparative studies are needed to determine the usefulness, efficacy, tolerability, and safety of particular psychopharmaceutical drugs in the treatment of this therapeutically and functionally challenging disorder.