PubMed Health⌕ Search

Biomedical subjects

P Durkin

Publications and source records attributed to P Durkin.

6 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2002

Inpatient costs and paramilitary punishment beatings in northern Ireland.

BACKGROUND: Paramilitary punishment beatings are a common occurrence in Northern Ireland. Little is known about the costs such attacks impose on the health service. METHODS: Data was collected retrospectively on victims treated by Northern Ireland's regional specialist orthopaedics unit. Data related to all victims treated in the unit between January 1999 and May 2000. RESULTS: Average inpatient care costs were 2010 Pounds ($2914). There was no significant difference in these between patients who were shot and those who were beaten. CONCLUSION: Punishment beatings present a small but significant cost burden to the health service. A fuller understanding of them from a health care perspective is warranted.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1995

The identification and testing of interaction patterns.

This paper presents a method for identifying and assessing the significance of interaction patterns among various chemicals and chemical classes of importance to regulatory toxicologists. To this end, efforts were made to assemble and evaluate experimental data on toxicologically significant interactions, to use this information to characterize the consistency of toxicological interactions, and to define classes of compounds that display similar toxicological interactions. The motivation for this effort is to be able to propose hypotheses, which can be validated by experimentation, on how 2 or more chemicals will interact.

Databases, Factual↗
PubMed1992

The efficacy of mupirocin ointment and chlorhexidine body scrubs in the eradication of nasal carriage of Staphylococcus aureus among patients undergoing long-term hemodialysis.

BACKGROUND: Patients undergoing long-term hemodialysis have a high prevalence of Staphylococcus aureus nasal carriage, which may lead to serious infections. Mupirocin ointment has been used intranasally to eradicate S. aureus carriage in health human volunteers and health care workers. Chlorhexidine, an antiseptic with excellent antistaphylococcal activity, is widely used for handwashing and skin cleansing. METHODS: Anterior nares cultures were obtained from patients older than 18 years who were undergoing long-term hemodialysis. Patients with S. aureus nasal carriage were enrolled in the study. Axillae and groins were cultured. Patients were given mupirocin ointment intranasally twice per day for 7 days and chlorhexidine body scrubs daily for the first 3 days. Follow-up cultures were obtained from anterior nares, axillae, and groins at 1 day, and 1, 4, 8 and 12 weeks after treatment. RESULTS: One day after completion of treatment nasal carriage was eradicated in 83% of patients (15/18). After 12 weeks, 69% of patients (11/16) were free of nasal carriage. CONCLUSIONS: Success rates of eradication were excellent compared with those in other published reports. This simple and effective regimen had no major side effects.

Administration, Intranasal↗
PubMed1983

The current use of studies on promoters and cocarcinogens in quantitative risk assessment.

Several of the priority pollutants discussed in EPA's Ambient Water Quality Criteria documents have been reported to have promotion or cocarcinogenic activity. For example, phenol appears to have tumor-promoting activity in mice when repeatedly applied after initiation with either 7,12-dimethyl-1,2-benzanthracene (DMBA) or benzo(a)pyrene (BaP). Similarly, it has been reported that 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) is a potent promoter of liver tumors as well as a cocarcinogen. However, in developing guidelines to derive ambient water quality criteria, it became apparent that satisfactory approaches had not been developed for using promotion/cocarcinogen data in human health risk estimation, nor were available promotion and/or cocarcinogen data on individual chemicals strong enough to permit a defensible quantitative risk estimation, if such approaches had existed. For this reason, the criteria derived for pollutants with reported promotion/cocarcinogenic activities were based on approaches for carcinogenic (e.g., TCDD), toxic (e.g., fluoranthene) or organoleptic effects (e.g., 2,4-dichlorophenol). Nonetheless, with advances in studies on both the biological mechanisms and dose/response patterns of promoters and cocarcinogens, it may be possible to develop a scientifically valid quantitative approach to use this type of data for derivation of ambient water quality criteria or other risk assessments. Some progress toward this goal and the problems associated with this effort are discussed.

Animals↗
PubMed1980

Human health hazards associated with chemical contamination of aquatic environment.

Given the finite supply of water available for human use, continued chemical contamination of the aquatic environment may pose a significant human health hazard. Consequently, an effort must be made to develop ambient water quality criteria to protect human health and preserve the integrity of the aquatic environment. In developing water quality criteria based on human health effects, information on sources of exposure, pharmacokinetics, and adverse effects must be carefully evaluated. Information on sources of exposure is needed to determine the contribution of exposure from water relative to all other sources. Pharmacokinetic data are used in inter- and intraspecies extrapolation and in characterizing the mode of toxic action. Information on toxic effects includes data on acute, subchronic, and chronic toxicity, mutagenicity, teratogenicity, and carcinogenicity. In analyzing such information, a distinction is made between threshold and nonthreshold effects. Currently, carcinogenicity and mutagenicity are considered to be nonthreshold effects. For carcinogens and mutagens, criteria are calculated by postulating an "acceptable" increased level of risk and using extrapolation models to estimate the dose which would result in this increased level of risk. For other chemicals, thresholds are assumed and criteria are calculated by deriving "acceptable daily intakes" for man which would presumably result in no observable adverse effects. Neither process is exact, and attempts must be made to improve and verify risk assessment methodologies.

Animals↗