Sigh syndrome: is it a sign of trouble?

Objective: The goal of this study was to identify the characteristics and clinical course of patients presenting with considerable stress regarding irrepressible persistent sighing, and to determine whether any association exists between this syndrome and respiratory or other organic disease, during the acute or follow-up period.

Study Design: We conducted a case series review of patients diagnosed with a defined symptom complex and gathered relevant data.

Population: Forty patients who presented to 3 family practice clinics in Israel met our 10 criteria for sigh syndrome: recurrent sighing; shallow respiration; conviction that deep breaths are obstructed; intensity of episodes provokes stress leading to consultation; no obvious trigger; episodes last a few days to several weeks; no interference with speech; sighing absent during sleep; no correlation with physical activity or rest; self-limited.

Adjuvant prednisone therapy in pharyngitis: a randomised controlled trial from general practice.

Background: Acute pharyngitis is a frequent and well-documented complaint in general practice but the associated suffering has remained largely unaddressed in the literature. Evidence, however, from five randomised controlled trials suggests that corticosteroids may be useful in relieving pain and discomfort arising from the condition.

Aim: To determine if short-acting oral therapy with prednisone was more effective than placebo in alleviating the suffering from acute pharyngitis in adults in a general practice setting.

How successfully do general practitioners diagnose herpetic gingivo-stomatitis clinically?

Herpetic gingivo-stomatitis is a common, often painful affliction of young children. Recently, aciclovir treatment has been found to be effective in hospital-referred cases, an approach limited in general practice where laboratory diagnosis is invariably impractical. This study demonstrated that 49 out of 63 clinical diagnoses of herpetic gingivo-stomatitis [PPV = 78%] made by 27 GPs were subsequently validated by laboratory virus culture.

Mucosal [SIgA] and serum [IgG] immunologic responses in the community after a single intra-nasal immunization with a new inactivated trivalent influenza vaccine.

Influenza morbidity affects entire populations, imposing an enormous burden in economic terms from working days lost. Protection afforded by current vaccines is often unsatisfactory and many individuals remain averse to injections. To counter these drawbacks, we tested an inactive intra-nasal trivalent influenza vaccine on 182 vaccinated and 92 placebo subjects in the community.