'Empowering clinicians in smaller sites': A qualitative study of clinician's experiences with a rural Virtual Paediatric Feeding Clinic.

Objective: To explore the experiences of 'spoke site' allied health and child and family health clinicians in the provision of care through a pilot 'hub and spoke' model Virtual Paediatric Feeding Clinic (VPFC) outreach service.

Design: The study was qualitative, with data from virtual interview transcripts analysed using thematic analysis.

Setting: Orange Health Service ('hub site') and seven community health centres within the Western NSW Local Health District ('spoke sites').

Creation and Validation of a Photonumeric Scale to Assess Volume Deficiency in the Infraorbital Region.

Background: The eyes are particularly important aesthetic features of the face and revitalization of the infraorbital region has become a focus of aesthetic treatments. Published infraorbital scales to date have limitations in that they have been descriptive, subjective, or have used computer-generated images. Thus, there is an unmet need for a validated scale based on actual images.

Correlation between infectivity and disease associated prion protein in the nervous system and selected edible tissues of naturally affected scrapie sheep.

The transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs) or prion diseases are a group of fatal neurodegenerative disorders characterised by the accumulation of a pathological form of a host protein known as prion protein (PrP). The validation of abnormal PrP detection techniques is fundamental to allow the use of high-throughput laboratory based tests, avoiding the limitations of bioassays. We used scrapie, a prototype TSE, to examine the relationship between infectivity and laboratory based diagnostic tools.

Quality of life assessments in advanced breast cancer: should there be more consistency?

Quality of life (QOL) measures have assumed increasing importance in assessing the impact of therapeutic drugs and interventions on patients and in making judgements about their cost-effectiveness. Important treatment decisions and crucial funding strategies involve QOL data and, for patients with a disease such as advanced breast cancer that impinges on their life expectancy, QOL can become a hugely important consideration. Yet, despite this, there is a lack of consensus on what defines an appropriate QOL measure, and inconsistency in the instruments that are chosen to measure it.

PrP(Sc) is associated with B cells in the blood of scrapie-infected sheep.

Recently, we reported that PrP(Sc), a surrogate marker for prion disease, is associated with the cellular fraction of blood from scrapie-infected sheep using a ligand-based immunoassay. In the study reported here, we found that a subset of peripheral blood mononuclear cells is most likely to sequester PrP(Sc) during both the preclinical phase of disease and at clinical end point. These cells had a cell surface phenotype of MHC class II DQ(+), surface immunoglobulin(+), CD11b(+), CD11c(+), CD21(+/)(-), which is consistent with a subpopulation of B cells.