Double disadvantage: the influence of ethnicity over socioeconomic position on childhood overweight and obesity: findings from an inner urban population of primary school children.

Objective: To examine the relationship between overweight/obesity in children, socioeconomic status and ethnicity/cultural background.

Design: Cross-sectional survey of children aged 4-13 years.

Setting: A total of 23 primary (elementary) schools in an inner urban municipality of Melbourne, Australia.

Giant cell tumor of the infratemporal fossa.

Giant cell tumors are an uncommon neoplasm; most are found in the long bones, formed by endochondral ossification. This article presents a case of giant cell tumor of the infratemporal fossa, which by radiographic and clinical examination appears to have originated in the squamous portion of the temporal bone.

Outcome data from the LEAP (Live, Eat and Play) trial: a randomized controlled trial of a primary care intervention for childhood overweight/mild obesity.

Objectives: To reduce gain in body mass index (BMI) in overweight/mildly obese children in the primary care setting.

Design: Randomized controlled trial (RCT) nested within a baseline cross-sectional BMI survey.

Setting: Twenty nine general practices, Melbourne, Australia.

Frequency of stuttering during challenging and supportive virtual reality job interviews.

Unlabelled: This paper seeks to demonstrate the possibility of manipulating the frequency of stuttering using virtual reality environments (VREs). If stuttering manifests itself in VREs similarly to the way it manifests itself in real world interactions, then VREs can provide a controlled, safe, and confidential method for treatment practice and generalization. Though many researchers and clinicians recognize the need for generalization activities in the treatment of stuttering, achieving generalization in a clinical setting poses challenges to client confidentiality, safety, and the efficient use of a professionals' time.

CT perfusion cerebral blood flow imaging in neurological critical care.

Computed tomography (CT) perfusion imaging is a technique for the measurement of cerebral blood flow, cerebral blood volume, and time-to-peak or mean transit time. The technique involves the administration of a single-bolus dose of iodinated contrast material, followed by spiral CT imaging during the passage of the contrast bolus through the cerebral vasculature. CT perfusion is a fast and inexpensive brain imaging modality for use in the management of patients with various neurological disorders, ranging from acute stroke to subarachnoid hemorrhage.

Submaximal angioplasty and staged stenting for severe posterior circulation intracranial stenosis: a technique in evolution.

Introduction: Severe medically refractory intracranial stenosis portends a grave prognosis. Recent advances in stent technology have enabled clinicians to treat these lesions. Evidence in the coronary literature suggests that stenting without predilation angioplasty is as safe and effective as stenting immediately preceded by predilation angioplasty for the treatment of severely stenotic lesions.

Can Australian general practitioners tackle childhood overweight/obesity? Methods and processes from the LEAP (Live, Eat and Play) randomized controlled trial.

Background: General practitioners (GPs) could make an important contribution to management of childhood overweight. However, there are no efficacy data to support this, and the feasibility of this approach is unknown.

Objectives: To determine if GPs and families can be recruited to a randomized controlled trial (RCT), and if GPs can successfully deliver an intervention to families with overweight/obese 5- to 9-year-old children.

Hypotensive endovascular test occlusion of the carotid artery in head and neck cancer.

Object: To evaluate the reliability of balloon test occlusion with hypotensive challenge (BTO and HC) as a predictor of neurological complications before internal carotid artery (ICA) sacrifice in patients with advanced head and neck cancer, the authors retrospectively reviewed the medical records of patients presenting to their institutions between 1992 and 1997 in whom this preoperative assessment was performed.

Methods: Eleven patents who were candidates for extended comprehensive neck dissection (ECND) and potential ICA sacrifice were included in the study. Eight patients tolerated the test and underwent endovascular occlusion or surgical ligation of the ICA before ECND (four patients), preservation of the ICA at the time of surgery (three patients), or palliative therapy (one patient).

The integration of neurosurgical techniques in current head and neck skull base surgery.

The recent advances in neurosurgery, applied to the growing field of skull base surgery, provide surgeons with new techniques to avoid the devastating complication of CSF leak, to improve patient selection by reducing the risk of stroke while expanding the operative options available to patients with head and neck malignancies, and to aid operative care through improved surgical planning and intraoperative localization.

Social, cultural and environmental influences on child activity and eating in Australian migrant communities.

Aim: This study set out to examine the socio-cultural, familial and environmental factors influencing health, eating habits and patterns of physical activity contributing to child and adolescent overweight and obesity.

Methods: Semi-structured, community-based interviews were conducted with contrasting key informant three-generation families; and generation by generation focus groups of grandparents, parents and children from four cultural communities in the state of Victoria, Australia. Purposive sampling occurred from Turkish, Greek, Indian and Chinese communities that have migrated to Australia within the last three generations (n = 160, eight families, 47 children aged 5-15 years, 29 parents, 42 grandparents).

Comparison of periprocedure complications resulting from direct stent placement compared with those due to conventional and staged stent placement in the basilar artery.

Object: Medically refractory, symptomatic atherosclerotic disease of the basilar artery (BA) portends a poor prognosis. Studies have shown morbidity rates following placement of stents in these lesions to be quite variable, ranging from 0 to 30%. The authors review their experience with BA stent placement for severe atherosclerotic disease to determine whether an increase in neurological morbidity is associated with direct stent placement (that performed without predilation angioplasty) compared with conventional stent placement (that performed immediately after predilation angioplasty) or staged stent placement (angioplasty followed > or = 1 month later by stent placement with or without repeated angioplasty).

Resection followed by radiosurgery for advanced juvenile nasopharyngeal angiofibroma: report of two cases.

Objective And Importance: Experience with the management of juvenile nasopharyngeal angiofibroma (JNA) by gamma knife radiosurgery is limited. We report control of the disease in two patients with advanced-stage JNA treated with primary resection followed by gamma knife stereotactic radiosurgery of residual disease.

Clinical Presentation: An 18-year-old man presented with chronic sinusitis, worsening headaches, diplopia, and left-sided facial numbness.

Regional specificity of exercise and calcium during skeletal growth in girls: a randomized controlled trial.

Combining exercise with calcium supplementation may produce additive or multiplicative effects at loaded sites; thus, we conducted a single blind, prospective, randomized controlled study in pre- and early-pubertal girls to test the following hypotheses. (1) At the loaded sites, exercise and calcium will produce greater benefits than exercise or calcium alone. (2) At non-loaded sites, exercise will have no benefit, whereas calcium with or without exercise will increase bone mass over that in exercise alone or no intervention.

Adults' representations of division facts: a consequence of learning history?

There has been a recent increase in the study of adults' performance on simple division problems. Researchers up to now have focused on the relationship between multiplication and division and have found that multiplication often has a mediating role in the solution of division problems (Campbell, 1997, 1999; LeFevre & Morris, 1999; Mauro, LeFevre, & Morris, 2002). In this study, division was exclusively examined to determine the strategies that are used to solve these problems and to identify factors relating to particular strategy use.

The role of fats in the lifecycle stages: the primary school years.

The most significant influence on a child's eating patterns is family eating behaviour, specifically in encouraging fruit and vegetable intake. The recommended 30% total energy from fat can be achieved by practical changes in eating pattern, such as limiting high fat snack foods to occasional or treat items. Saturated fat intake can be reduced to recommended levels by reducing intake from whole milk and yoghurt, ice-cream, and potato and snack items, and replacing part of this with monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acid sources such as nuts, seeds, margarine or hummus dips.

A technique for rigid fixation of methyl methacrylate cranioplasty: the vault-locking method.

Background: Current treatment of difficult to reach lesions of the central nervous system favors extensive bone removal for improved visualization and access with minimal brain retraction. Particularly in the posterior fossa, bone is often removed piecemeal, and a standard craniotomy flap is not always available for simple reattachment. Cranioplasty with methyl methacrylate is used to provide cosmesis and neural protection.