[The attitude of Dutch women of Turkish ancestry towards measures for the prevention and treatment of vitamin D deficiency; the results of focus group interviews].

Objective: To obtain insight into the attitude of Dutch women of Turkish ancestry towards various possible measures for the prevention and treatment of vitamin D deficiency.

Design: Qualitative, focus group interviews.

Method: Four focus group meetings of 4-13 women of Turkish ancestry (mean age: 31.

Upgrading unsatisfactory cervical smears with the MiB-1 method.

When an unsatisfactory smear (thick inflammatory infiltrate or blood influencing the staining characteristics of the epithelial cells) is restained for MiB-1, the diagnostic proliferating cells are visualized, and the MiB-1-positive smears can be thus upgraded as borderline, grade I, II, and III, corresponding with the cytologic diagnoses of, respectively, ASCUS, CIN I, II, and > or = III. In a period of 18 months, 2,068 unsatisfactory smears out of a material of 84,817 smears were restained for MiB-1. In the unsatisfactory group, significantly more abnormal smears were detected than in the satisfactory group.

Involving the general practitioner in screening for cervical cancer.

In the Leiden region, the cervical cancer screening programme for the age group 35-54 years shifted in 1989 from one in which the smears were taken by specially trained paramedical personnel in health centres to a programme where the general practitioner is the smear taker. Hence, it is possible to compare the results of the two types of screening to evaluate whether involvement of general practitioners leads to better uptake of screening. In the 6 year period evaluated in this paper, the 3-yearly cytological rate per thousand for severe dysplasia or worse increased from 1.

Trichobilharzia ocellata: Quantification of effects on haemocytes of the pond snail Lymnaea stagnalis by morphometric means.

To identify functionally different subpopulations, we quantified by morphometric means the spreading activity of circulating haemocytes of the pond snail Lymnaea stagnalis, recognized by monoclonal antibodies (5 surface and 5 cytoplasmic). The influence of snail age and of the different intramolluscan stages of the compatible avian schistosome Trichobilharzia ocellata on this activity were studied. The antibody-recognized cells could be separated into two groups, differing in their spreading activities.