Optimizing outpatient serial sputum colony counting for studies of tuberculosis treatment in resource-poor settings.

Serial Sputum Colony Counting (SSCC) is an important technique in clinical trials of new treatments for tuberculosis (TB). Quantitative cultures on selective Middlebrook agar are used to calculate the rate of bacillary elimination from sputum collected from patients at different time points during the first 2 months of therapy. However, the procedure can be complicated by high sample contamination rates.

Sentinel lymph node biopsy in melanoma: The Oxford ten year clinical experience.

Sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) has become an established investigation for assessing microscopic nodal metastasis in melanoma. The American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) incorporates the sentinel node status in its staging criteria for melanoma. We present our clinical evaluation of performing SLNB in a single UK centre between 1998 and 2008.

Towards Web-based representation and processing of health information.

Background: There is great concern within health surveillance, on how to grapple with environmental degradation, rapid urbanization, population mobility and growth. The Internet has emerged as an efficient way to share health information, enabling users to access and understand data at their fingertips. Increasingly complex problems in the health field require increasingly sophisticated computer software, distributed computing power, and standardized data sharing.

Online GIS services for mapping and sharing disease information.

Background: Disease data sharing is important for the collaborative preparation, response, and recovery stages of disease control. Disease phenomena are strongly associated with spatial and temporal factors. Web-based Geographical Information Systems provide a real-time and dynamic way to represent disease information on maps.

Three fatal cases of squamous cell carcinoma arising in chronic perineal hidradenitis suppurativa.

Introduction: Hidradenitis suppurativa (HS) is a chronic, inflammatory and suppurative disorder of skin bearing apocrine glands. The most severe complication is squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) and we here present three cases, all of which proved fatal, and review the past 40 years of published cases.

Patients And Methods: Three advanced cases of SCC arising in chronic HS have been referred for reconstructive surgery over the past 8 years.

Augmentation of influenza surveillance with rapid antigen detection at the point-of-care: results of a pilot study in Tasmania, 2004.

Tasmania contributes very few laboratory confirmed cases to Australia's national influenza surveillance statistics. In 2004, a study was conducted to pilot test sentinel syndromic surveillance for influenza-like illness supplemented by point-of-care testing using the Binax Now Flu A Test Kit and by viral culture, to assess the feasibility and acceptability of this method of surveillance. Overall, the goal of such a system would be to increase laboratory surveillance activity within Tasmania and increase the number of specimens sent for viral culture.

Meningococcal vaccine failure in conjunction with an unusual meningococcal cluster in southern Tasmania.

The following is a report of an unusual family cluster of group C invasive meningococcal disease in Tasmania. This unusual case cluster raises several important issues of public health significance regarding vaccine failure and nucleic acid amplification testing use in the setting of invasive meningococcal disease.

A multi-jurisdictional outbreak of hepatitis A related to a youth camp--implications for catering operations and mass gatherings.

In June 2003, Australian state and territory health departments were notified of an outbreak of Hepatitis A in people who had attended a five-day youth camp. Approximately 350 people attended the event in Central Australia between 24 and 28 April 2003. The public health investigation comprised of case identification, food handler interviews, an environmental health investigation of the campground and associated food premises, laboratory analysis of blood specimens and food/water samples, and an epidemiological study.

An outbreak of cryptosporidiosis associated with an animal nursery at a regional fair.

Cryptosporidiosis is a common gastrointestinal illness that is transmitted from infected persons, animals, or contaminated water or food. This article reports on an outbreak of cryptosporidiosis associated with an animal nursery at an agricultural show held in northern Tasmania during October 2001. Eighty-one per cent of cases (38/47) notified to the Tasmanian Department of Health and Human Services over a 35 day period were interviewed to determine potential sources of infection.