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Objective: To describe self-reported menopausal symptom priorities and their association with demographics and other symptoms among participants in an intervention trial for vasomotor symptoms (VMS).Methods: Cross-sectional study embedded in the MsFLASH 02 trial, a three-by-two factorial design of yoga vs. exercise vs. usual activity and omega-3-fatty acid vs. placebo. At baseline, women (n = 354) completed hot flush diaries, a card sort task to prioritize symptoms they would most like to alleviate, and standardized questionnaires.Results: The most common symptom priorities were: VMS (n = 322), sleep (n = 191), concentration (n = 140), and fatigue (n = 116). In multivariate models, women who chose VMS as their top priority symptom (n = 210) reported significantly greater VMS severity (p = 0.004) and never smoking (p = 0.012), and women who chose sleep as their top priority symptom (n = 100) were more educated (p ≤ 0.001) and had worse sleep quality (p < 0.001). ROC curves identified sleep scale scores that were highly predictive of ranking sleep as a top priority symptom.Conclusions: Among women entering an intervention trial for VMS and with relatively low prevalence of depression and anxiety, VMS was the priority symptom for treatment. A card sort may be a valid tool for quickly assessing symptom priorities in clinical practice and research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although most women report vasomotor symptoms (hot flashes, night sweats) during midlife, their etiology and risk factors are incompletely understood. Body fat is positively associated with vasomotor symptoms cross-sectionally, but the longitudinal relation between changes in body fat and vasomotor symptoms is uncharacterized. The study aim was to examine whether gains in body fat were related to vasomotor symptom reporting over time. Measures of bioelectrical impedance for body fat, reproductive hormones, and reported vasomotor symptoms were assessed annually over 4 years from 2002 to 2006 among 1,659 women aged 47-59 years participating in the Study of Women's Health Across the Nation. Body fat change was examined in relation to vasomotor symptoms by using generalized estimating equations. Body fat gains were associated with greater odds of reporting hot flashes in models adjusted for age, site, race/ethnicity, education, smoking, parity, anxiety, and menopausal status (relative to stable body fat, gain: odds ratio = 1.23, 95% confidence interval: 1.02, 1.48; P = 0.03; loss: odds ratio = 1.07, 95% confidence interval: 0.89, 1.29; P = 0.45). Findings persisted controlling for estradiol, the free estradiol index, or follicle-stimulating hormone concentrations. The relations between body fat changes and night sweats were not statistically significant. Body fat gains are associated with greater hot flash reporting during the menopausal transition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present investigation identifies the key images that British newspapers use to represent climate change risks. In doing so, it widens the scope of the burgeoning literature analysing textual content of climate change media information. This is particularly important given visual information's ability to arouse emotion, and the risk perception literature's increasing focus on the importance of affect in shaping risk perception. From a thematic analysis of newspaper images, three broad themes emerged: the impact of climate change, personification of climate change and representation of climate change in graphical form. In particular, the depiction of climate change as an issue affecting domestic populations rather than just other areas of the world brings the threat closer to home. Challenging the perception that climate change is still a long-term and future-orientated threat, visual images concretise the risk by providing viewers with tangible examples of climate change's impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The so-called 'hospital superbug' methcillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) became a topic of media and political concern in Britain from the middle of the 1990s. It was increasingly politicised in the period leading up to the British General Election of 2005. This study examines the meanings of MRSA that circulate in Britain by analysing newspaper coverage of the disease over the 10-year period 1995-2005. It utilises social representations theory and contextualises MRSA within existing research on representations of emerging infectious diseases (EIDs). A key pattern in the representation of EIDs is to externalise the threat they pose by linking the origin, risk and blame to 'the other' of those who represent them. It is in this light that this study investigates who and what MRSA is associated with and the impact that these associations have on levels of alarm and blame. Key findings are that MRSA is represented as a potentially lethal 'superbug', marking the end of a 'golden age of medicine' in which the story of the discovery of antibiotics has played such a key role. Furthermore, MRSA is constructed around an 'it could be you/me' set of assumptions by way of the plethora of human interest stories that dominate the coverage. Finally, the blame for MRSA focuses not on its genesis, but rather on why it spreads. This is attributed to poor hygiene in hospitals, which is ultimately caused by mismanagement of the National Health Service and erosion of the authority and morality symbolised by the 'matron' role. This constellation of meanings informs a somewhat different pattern of response to MRSA when compared to many past EIDs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to estimate risk factors for the deterioration and improvement of premenstrual mood disturbance with oral contraceptive pill use.Study Design: Predictors of the deleterious and beneficial effects of oral contraceptive pill use on premenstrual mood were analyzed with the use of logistic regression in a nested case-control study within a community-based cohort of 976 premenopausal women in Massachusetts.Results: Of 658 women who were using oral contraceptive pills, 16.3% of the women reported oral contraceptive pill-related premenstrual mood deterioration, and 12.3% of the women reported premenstrual mood improvement. In adjusted models, previous depression was the only significant predictor of mood deterioration (odds ratio, 2.0; 95% CI, 1.1-3.8); early-onset premenstrual mood disturbance and dysmenorrhea were significant predictors of oral contraceptive pill-related mood improvement (odds ratio, 3.1 [95% CI, 1.9-5.2] and odds ratio, 2.3 [95% CI, 1.4-3.9], respectively).Conclusion: Oral contraceptive pills do not influence premenstrual mood in most women. Premenstrual mood is most likely to deteriorate in women with a history of depression and to improve in women with early-onset premenstrual mood disturbance or dysmenorrhea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes that health promotion may benefit from a social psychological theory that maps the contents and evolution of lay 'logic'. Social representations theory forms the focus, since it facilitates entry into people's meaning systems regarding risks, as well as into the functions served by such meanings. The theory is assessed once the assumptions of the more commonly used, contrasting perspective of risk perception is examined. Cognitive theories of risk perception tend to focus on an ideal of rational information processing and assume that people are averse to harm. They are unified in their centre of attention being the intrapersonal level. Having looked at studies of lay responses to childhood vaccination, diabetes and smoking, the paper demonstrates that such assumptions can be challenged. Social representations theory is summoned as a unifying rubric in which to conduct studies that operate from wholly different assumptions: the history and symbols held dear within particular social networks fashion their representations of the health issues they face. These are difficult to change because they serve an identity protective function, rather than being products of faulty information processing which can be rectified by way of a dose of 'reality'. However, at least by mapping the evolution and contents of such representations one can help health promoters in starting with where audiences are located, rather than operating from models of behaviour change that are underpinned by assumptions that have limited validity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Treatment of major depression in menopausal women is controversial. Estrogen replacement therapy (ERT) treats mild depression but may not treat more severe depression in this population. Antidepressants are recommended as treatment for major depression in menopausal women, but the specific efficacy of antidepressants has not been examined in menopause-associated depression. Twenty-two perimenopausal and postmenopausal women aged 40-61 taking stable doses of ERT who met Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV (SCID-IV) criteria for major depression were accessioned into an open-label clinical trial of mirtazapine. Subjects were treated with 30-45 mg/day mirtazapine for 8 weeks and were assessed every 2 weeks with the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale-17 (HDRS-17), Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), and Clinical Global Impression (CGI) Scale. Remission of depression was defined as an HDRS-17 score < or =7 at the week 8 study visit. Sixteen (73%) of the enrolled subjects completed the 8-week study. The median HDRS-17 score declined from 20.5 (range 12-37) at baseline to 2 (range 0-9) at week 8 (Wilcoxon signed-rank test, p < 0.001). Remission of depression was achieved by 14 of 16 (87.5%) study completers. Subjects responded well to mirtazapine regardless of whether their depression preceded ERT use or developed after ERT was initiated. Therapeutic response also appeared independent of menopausal status (perimenopausal vs. postmenopausal), ERT preparation, and concomitant use of medroxyprogesterone. Mirtazapine is an effective treatment for major depression in perimenopausal and postmenopausal women whose depression precedes ERT use and does not respond to ERT or whose depression develops after ERT is initiated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thirty-two patients with double outlet right ventricle (DORV) were studied between 1960 and 1976. Associated congenital defects frequently compounded the difficulty of clinical diagnosis. Cardiac catheterisation was performed in 27 patients, and the ventriculograms were studied with particular regard to the relative positions of the great vessels to each other and to the ventricular septal defect. These relationships determine which corrective operation is possible. Correction has been performed in 12 patients with a perioperative mortality of 25%. Although mitral-aortic discontinuity was demonstrated in all cases, consideration of the anatomical spectrum included in the term DORV suggests that discontinuity is not an essential feature. In common with other clinical data and in contrast with necropsy studies, none of our patients was found to show the normal relationship of the great vessels to each other, in which the aorta lies posterior and to the right of the pulmonary artery. The reason for this difference between the clinical and necropsy findings is not apparent. A similar disparity was shown with regard to pulmonary stenosis, which was demonstrated at catheterisation in 68% of the 27 patients (mean gradient 68 +/- 3 mmHg), in contrast with incidences of 18% and 25% in recent necropsy series. Patients in the necropsy studies were frequently neonates or infants, in whom death may have been the result of intractable cardiac failure secondary to excessive pulmonary blood flow. In older patients without pulmonary stenosis and with pulmonary hypertension, frequent observation is imperative so that surgical treatment can be instituted before the development of irreversible pulmonary vascular disease. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

, 438-443. Bacterial pericarditis was diagnosed in 28 children under the age of 13 years during a five-year period at one hospital. The diagnosis was established clinically in 26 cases; in two the condition was first recognized at necropsy. was isolated in 22 patients, including all 12 with associated osteitis. The other principal primary condition was pneumonia. While 11 patients were treated with antibiotics only, 13 required one or more pericardial aspirations. Acute constrictive pericarditis occurred in two children, both of whom survived pericardiectomy. Of the 26 children with a clinical diagnosis of bacterial pericarditis, eight died in hospital (31%). The pericarditis probably caused death in two cases and was contributory in six. Septic pericarditis tends to occur in children who are already ill because of other foci of bacterial infection and may easily be overlooked, especially in infants. The large numbers reported reflect a high incidence of osteitis in this community. Electrocardiographic and radiological changes are almost always demonstrable, but these are not diagnostic. Antibiotic therapy is imperative and drainage of the pericardium is usually indicated. Bacterial pericarditis is associated with a high mortality. However, while early recognition and treatment is important, death is more often due to the general septicaemia than to pericardial tamponade. In this respect the pericarditis is one indication of the severity of the systemic illness. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

OBJECTIVE--To test the hypothesis that isolated coarctation of the aorta is associated with relative hypoplasia of the mitral valve, even when the valve is morphologically normal. DESIGN--Cross sectional and Doppler echocardiography were used in a prospective, paired, case control study to compare mitral valve dimensions and diastolic transmitral flow characteristics as indices of left heart development. 40 children with isolated coarctation and 40 size matched controls were examined. Within the coarctation group 14 children with apical diastolic murmurs were compared with 14 size matched patients without murmurs. SETTING--A supraregional tertiary referral centre for paediatric cardiology. OUTCOME MEASURES--Mitral valve diameters, measured from the parasternal long axis, short axis, and apical four chamber views; mitral valve cross sectional area measured from the parasternal short axis view; peak early (E) and peak atrial (A) phase diastolic transmitral flow velocities measured by pulsed wave Doppler from the apical four chamber view; derived E/A ratio and pressure half time of decay from peak E. RESULTS--Mitral valve dimensions were significantly smaller in children with coarctation than in controls for long axis diameter (median 1.74 v 1.90cm, p = 0.0001), short axis diameter (2.21 v 2.28 cm, p = 0.027), and cross sectional area (2.37 v 3.15 cm2, p = 0.001). Peak E and A velocities were significantly higher in patients than in controls (0.9 v 0.82 ms-1, p = 0.013 and 0.61 v 0.51 ms-1, p = 0.007). The only difference between children with coarctation plus murmurs and those without murmurs was a marginally longer pressure half time. CONCLUSIONS--Smaller mitral valve dimensions and increased diastolic transmitral flow velocities in children with isolated coarctation compared with normal children suggests that coarctation may be part of a generalised hypoplasia of left heart structures. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

OBJECTIVE--To assess the results of balloon dilatation of the aortic valve as first line treatment for infants presenting in the first two months of life with cardiac failure caused by severe aortic stenosis. DESIGN--A prospective study of all such infants presenting to a single centre over a three year period. PATIENTS--Of 14 consecutive infants aged < 2 months presenting with heart failure due to severe stenosis of the aortic valve, 12 underwent balloon dilatation of the valve. Two infants with hypoplastic left heart syndrome were excluded. Six patients had other significant cardiac malformations, nine had endocardial fibroelastosis. Four infants were moribund at presentation. INTERVENTIONS--Balloon dilatation was performed through the femoral artery under general anaesthetic, with heparin and antibiotic prophylaxis. Maximum inflated balloon size was selected as equal to or slightly less than the diameter of the aortic valve measured echocardiographically. In two infants balloon dilatation of coexistent severe coarctation was performed at the same time. RESULTS--Dilatation was achieved in all cases. Early survival rate (up to one month) was 75%; 50% survive up to three years. The two deaths occurring < 24 hours after dilatation probably related to the infants' poor condition at presentation and the presence of significant left ventricular hypoplasia. The other early death was due to severe mitral regurgitation from papillary muscle dysfunction. All later deaths were related to associated malformations. The difference in left ventricular size (diameter and length) measured echocardiographically at presentation between survivors and those that died is significant (p < or = 0.002). 83% of deaths occurred in infants with associated malformations. Cusp perforation occurred in one infant, which may have contributed to this patient's death. Left ventricular perforation and cardiac tamponade were treated successfully by prompt pericardiocentesis in another. CONCLUSIONS--Balloon dilatation of the aortic valve is an acceptable first line treatment for neonates with severe symptomatic stenosis of the aortic valve. Outcome depends principally on left ventricular size and on the presence, severity, and timing of treatment of associated malformations. Severe endocardial fibroelastosis was not a risk factor for early death but may have implications for long term survival. The survival rate for this high risk group might be improved by a stratified approach where patients with adequate left ventricular size have balloon dilatation whereas those with severe ventricular hypoplasia are managed like patients with the hypoplastic left heart syndrome. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

OBJECTIVE--To assess the clinical condition of patients and the adequacy of their newly constructed venous pathways after the Senning operation for simple transposition of the great arteries. PATIENTS AND DESIGN--All 34 patients who had the Senning operation between March 1983 and December 1986 were reviewed. Survivors had detailed cardiac catheterisation studies one to two years later and clinical evaluation two to six years after surgery. RESULTS--There were two operative deaths (6%), one sudden late death (after two years), and 31 survivors (91%). No clinical evidence of obstructed venous pathways was found and there was no need for reoperation for any reason. The average mean (SD) pressure gradient at the junction of the superior vena cava and systemic venous atrium was 2.0 (1.7) mm Hg, although two patients had gradients of 7 mm Hg. The average gradient was 0.7 (1) mm Hg in the inferior vena caval pathway, and 1.4 (1.1) mm Hg between the mean pulmonary arterial wedge and pulmonary venous atrial pressures. Only the two patients with gradients of 7 mm Hg at the junction of the superior vena cava and the systemic venous atrium had considerable narrowing of the pathway and retrograde flow in the azygos vein to below the diaphragm. CONCLUSION--A small series of patients were comprehensively studied after the Senning operation for simple transposition of the great arteries. Scrupulous technique in the construction of the venous pathways has had excellent results with no need for reoperation for obstruction in either the systemic or pulmonary pathways. Clinical observation alone may fail to identify patients with venous pathway obstruction, therefore careful assessment is required, even in patients who are physically normal. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

OBJECTIVE--The origin of innocent systolic murmurs is uncertain. This study was designed to evaluate the relative contribution in the same subjects of the main factors implicated in the genesis of vibratory innocent systolic murmurs--that is, the presence of left ventricular bands and increased left ventricular flow indices--and to examine evidence for turbulence in relation to these findings. PATIENTS--40 children with innocent systolic murmurs and 40 paired controls without murmurs were matched for age and body surface area. DESIGN--These subjects were examined prospectively by cross sectional echocardiography with pulsed and continuous wave Doppler and colour flow mapping. SETTING--A tertiary referral centre for paediatric cardiology. RESULTS--Left ventricular bands were significantly more prevalent in patients with innocent murmurs (70%) than in controls (48%) but only if apical bands were included (p = 0.039). Cases had significantly higher aortic peak flow velocities (p less than 0.001), flow integrals (p = 0.001), and stroke volumes (p = 0.014), and significantly lower heart rates (p = 0.033) than controls. There were no significant differences between cases and controls in mean aortic diameter, cardiac output, or ejection fraction. There was no evidence of turbulence in the left ventricle or outflow tract in any individual but curvilinear periodic vibrations and audible "whoops" were detected in the left ventricle by pulsed wave Doppler echocardiography. These were significantly more common in cases than controls (p less than 0.01) but were not related to the presence of bands. CONCLUSIONS--Innocent systolic murmurs were unrelated to aortic size but they were strongly associated with higher aortic flow volume and velocity, with relative bradycardia, and with evidence of vibratory phenomena in the left ventricle. The role of left ventricular bands remains uncertain. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

There are as yet few clinical reports of successful treatment of bacterial endocarditis with oral antibiotics, or of the use of the rifamycins in non-tuberculous infections. A case of refractory staphylococcal endocarditis successfully treated with oral rifampicin and erythromycin is presented. The availability of effective oral antibiotic therapy avoids the serious difficulties of long term parenteral antibiotics and offers a hopeful alternative to emergency cardiac surgery in this condition. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We report a case of mucocutaneous lymph node syndrome, which was diagnosed in a 13 month old boy two years after the death of his sister from the same disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A small number of patients with haemangioma need treatment for serious complications such as Kasabach-Merritt syndrome, cardiac failure and obstruction of the airway. We report on the management of an infant with Kasabach-Merritt syndrome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]