Maternal support during the first year of infancy.

Background: Mental health problems among children and adolescents are becoming more visible and some research indicates that they are increasing. Several studies suggest that social support counteracts the increasing risk of ill-health in families with children. However, there is a lack of studies which focus on the support that expectant mothers and parents might need.

The social consequences of insulin-treated diabetes mellitus in patients 20-50 years of age. An epidemiological case-control study.

In order to investigate the social consequences of diabetes we sent a questionnaire to all diabetic patients aged 20-50 years and 1.125 matched non-diabetic controls living in the county of Västerbotten in Northern Sweden. The response rate was 87% and 72%, respectively.

Prospective evaluation of human chorionic gonadotropin in the treatment of cryptorchidism.

Of 158 boys consecutively referred for undescended testis, 77 were found to have true cryptorchidism. Human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG) was given to 60 boys (63 undescended testes) in a dose of 5,000 U (patient age 4-6 years) or 10,000 U (7-9 years). The parents of seven others preferred direct referral for orchiopexy.

Sources of improvement in between laboratory variation in estrogen and progestin receptor measurement using tissue samples during the Australian Quality Assurance Programme.

Tissue and cytosol samples were compared as quality control material for assessment of between and within laboratory error in measurement of estrogen and progestin receptors (ER and PR) in a series of four trials for a total of 17 participating laboratories during the Australasian Quality Assurance Programme. For tissue samples, a substantial reduction in between laboratory CVs for both ER and PR from about 90 to 50% was achieved during the programme. In contrast, for cytosol samples a substantially lower between laboratory CV of about 30% was obtained.