Underlying causes and long-term survival in patients with initially unexplained cardiomyopathy.

Background: Previous studies of the prognosis of patients with heart failure due to cardiomyopathy categorized patients according to whether they had ischemic or nonischemic disease. The prognostic value of identifying more specific underlying causes of cardiomyopathy is unknown.

Methods: We evaluated the outcomes of 1230 patients with cardiomyopathy.

Detection of HIV DNA in cervical and vaginal secretions. Prevalence and correlates among women in Nairobi, Kenya.

Objective: Factors that influence heterosexual transmission of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), including sexually transmitted diseases, contraceptive practices, sexual practices, HIV-related immunosuppression, and presence of cervical ectopy and the penile foreskin, have been identified through cross-sectional and prospective cohort epidemiological studies. To more directly characterize factors that influence infectivity, we conducted a study of HIV shedding from the genital tract in women.

Design: Ninety-seven HIV-seropositive women attending a sexually transmitted disease clinic in Nairobi, Kenya, completed a questionnaire and underwent a physical examination and an evaluation for sexually transmitted diseases.

Association of cervical ectopy with heterosexual transmission of human immunodeficiency virus: results of a study of couples in Nairobi, Kenya.

To identify risk factors involved in heterosexual transmission of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a cross-sectional study of HIV-seropositive men and their spouses was conducted in Nairobi, Kenya. Of 70 spouses, 40 (57%) were seropositive and 30 (43%) were seronegative for HIV. In univariate analysis, the presence of cervical ectopy (odds ratio, 4.