Sociocultural deterrents to mammographic screening in Jamaica.

Objective: Less than five per cent of eligible Jamaican women had mammograms in 2003. The sociocultural determinants and the perceptual barriers modulating screening behaviour in Jamaican women are unclear. We sought to investigate sociocultural effects, in particular knowledge and fear of the procedure on mammographic screening behaviour in Jamaican women.

Mammographic referral patterns for two breast imaging units in Jamaica.

Objective: In countries that have instituted national mammographic screening programmes, mortality from breast cancer has decreased by as much as 63%. Although mortality rates from breast cancer in Jamaica are high, there is no national mammographic screening programme. In this context, opportunistic screening, which depends on contact between healthcare provider and patient, as well as self-referral become important.

Effect of conversion from a fee-for-service plan to a capitation reimbursement system on a circumscribed outpatient radiology practice of 20,000 persons.

Purpose: To assess the effect of a capitation reimbursement plan with attendant changes in service arrangements on the utilization of radiologic services, financially on the payer, and on the satisfaction of patients and referring physicians.

Materials And Methods: Outpatient radiologic services for a defined population of 20,000 company employees and their dependents were converted from a point-of-service managed care plan to a capitation payment plan. Under the capitation plan, nonemergent outpatient diagnostic imaging was performed at a newly constructed imaging center staffed by general radiologists.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging reveals brain regions mediating the response to resistive expiratory loads in humans.

Obstructive lung disease is the most common form of respiratory disturbance. However, the location of brain structures underlying the ventilatory response to resistive expiratory loads is unknown in humans. To study this issue, midsagittal magnetic resonance images were acquired in eight healthy volunteers before and after application of a moderate resistive expiratory load (30 cmH2O/liter/s), using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) strategies (1.

A quantitative physiologic model of blood oxygenation for functional magnetic resonance imaging.

Rationale And Objectives: Variations in venous deoxyhemoglobin levels in response to neuronal activation represent a complex interplay between focal changes in cerebral blood flow (CBF), cerebral blood volume (CBV), and regional metabolism. The authors present a mathematic model that characterizes the response of venous oxygenation to changes in these variables.

Methods: Using a mass balance approach, the equations for a simple input-output model are derived and solved using Matlab.