PubMed · 15555982
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Bhagwan Satiani. 2004. The National Practitioner Data Bank: structure and function.. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jamcollsurg.2004.08.020
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The Forensic Ear Identification (FearID) research project was started in order to study the strength of evidence of earprints found on crime scenes. For this purpose, a sample of earprints from 1229 donors over three countries was collected. From each donor three left and three right earprints were gathered. On the one hand, operators denoted contours of the earprints to facilitate segmentation of the images, on the other anthropological specialists denoted anatomically specific locations. On the basis of this, methods for automated classification were developed and used for training of a system that classifies pairs of prints as 'matching' or 'non-matching'. Comparing lab quality prints, the system has an equal error rate of 4%. Starting from a reference database containing two prints per ear, hitlist behaviour is such that in 90% of all query searches the best hit is in the top 0.1% of the list. The results become less favourable (equal error rate of 9%) for print/mark comparisons.
AIMS: Midurethral slings have become the mainstay of stress urinary incontinence (SUI) treatment due to their efficacy and low complication rates. The purpose of this study was to report the presentation and treatment of major complications from these minimally invasive treatments presented to a tertiary referral practice and to highlight a discrepancy in major complications between literature and the food and drug administration (FDA) device failure database. METHODS: From 2001 through 2005, we reviewed all cases of midurethral sling complications that presented to our institution. A literature review of all complications due to midurethral slings during the same time period was performed as was the FDA manufacturer and user facility device experience (MAUDE) database queried for self-reported complications. RESULTS: A total of 26 patients referred to UCLA with voiding dysfunction after sling placement was found to have mesh in the urethra or bladder. Treatments required a combination of urethrolysis with mesh removal, urethral reconstruction with graft, and bladder excision. These were compared to major complications reported in the world literature of <1%. The MAUDE database contained 161 major complications out of a total of 928 complications reported for suburethral slings. There was significantly more major complications reported in MAUDE than in published literature. CONCLUSIONS: Although rare, major complications of midurethral slings are more common than appear in literature. Devastating complications involving urethral and bladder perforations can present with mild urinary symptoms and thus are likely under-diagnosed and under-reported. Most of these cases need to be managed with additional reconstructive surgery.
PURPOSE: The United Kingdom (UK) government changed the prescription policy of statins, making low-dose simvastatin (10 mg) available as an over-the-counter (OTC) drug in August 2004. We assessed the impact of this policy change on statin prescribing. METHODS: We examined all statin prescriptions in the General Practice Research Database (GPRD), a well-validated database of approximately 3.5 million patients, from the first quarter of 2001 to the second quarter of 2005. RESULTS: From 2001, the number of statin prescriptions written for GPRD patients was increasing by approximately 437 prescriptions per 100,000 people per quarter until the time of the policy change. Over the four quarters post-policy implementation, however, this trend changed abruptly (p < 0.0001) with a decrease of 281 prescriptions per 100,000 people per quarter. This decrease was not restricted to prescriptions of 10 mg statins but was also observed for statin prescriptions of >or=20 mg. Several other cardiovascular medications displayed a similar trend as that observed in the number of statin prescriptions. This trend was not observed among non-cardiovascular control medications. CONCLUSIONS: Our study suggests that the policy allowing the OTC sale of 10 mg simvastatin has had a significant impact on statin prescriptions by general practitioners. However, this new policy may also be leading to less aggressive statin therapy. An alternative explanation for the observed decrease in statin prescriptions may be related to the unknown factors responsible for the overall decrease observed with other cardiovascular prescription drugs.