Knowledge on arterial hypertension in general population: Results from a community pharmacy screening program.

Backgrounds And Aims: Hypertension is a risk factor for renal, cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases. It is responsible for a large proportion of overall morbidity and mortality every year. Hypertension-mediated organ damage is largely not reversible.

Steerable-Discrete-Cosine-Transform (SDCT): Hardware Implementation and Performance Analysis.

In the last years, the need for new efficient video compression methods grown rapidly as frame resolution has increased dramatically. The Joint Collaborative Team on Video Coding (JCT-VC) effort produced in 2013 the H.265/High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) standard, which represents the state of the art in video coding standards.

Moebius syndrome: clinical features, diagnosis, management and early intervention.

Background: Moebius syndrome (MBS) is rare disease characterized by nonprogressive congenital uni- or bi-lateral facial (i. e. VII cranial nerve) and abducens (i.

Being an overseas student at the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery of the University of Parma: the perceptions of students from Cameroon.

Unlabelled: There is a steady rise in the number of overseas students taking degree courses at the Medicine and Surgery faculties of Italian Universities. Numerous scholars, mainly from the English speaking world, have testified to the fact that a university teaching organisation aimed at attaining good levels of integration among students of differing cultural appurtenance is a prerequisite for success in the acquisition of good treatment practices.

Aim: To explore the experience of students from Cameroon studying on the degree courses in Medicine and Surgery and in Nursing at the University of Parma, in order to discover the strong and weak points of the organisation of the courses so as to achieve a good process of integration.

Building a National Pediatric Cancer Center and Network in Paraguay: Lessons for Addressing Challenges in a Low-income Country.

In Paraguay, cancer is among the leading causes of death among children. We report challenges and solutions for building the country's first pediatric cancer center at the National University School of Medicine (PCC-SM) and describe the outcomes of the National Network for Pediatric Cancer. We found that children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia treated between 2008 and 2012 had higher 3-year survival rates and lower treatment abandonment rates than did children treated between 2000 and 2007 before the network was established.

[The model of Human Caring: results of a pre- and post-intervention study with a control group].

Introduction: The "Human Caring" model is a philosophy of care based on individual centrality and which, although developed within nursing discipline, could be used by all professionals who take care of individuals. Nurses who work within the field of Mental Health, is subjected to a considerable emotional burden and it is believed that the introduction of this model can have a positive impact.

Objective: To evaluate the effects of the introduction of the model Human Caring in the Department of Mental Health Asl Cuneo 1, in order to improve health care professionals' well-being and patients' perception with respect to care and assistance.

Strangers in a strange land: work experiences of foreign nurses in Parma's territory.

Purpose: The purpose of this research is to explore, investigate and describe experiences and points of view of foreign nurses working in the area of Parma. We focalize particularly on two areas of interest: negativities and positivities in experiences related to the process of integration into the new working environment.

Background: The literature search has revealed that the phenomenon of "nursing immigration" is numerically significant in Italy and more particularly in Emilia Romagna.

SETIL: Italian multicentric epidemiological case-control study on risk factors for childhood leukaemia, non hodgkin lymphoma and neuroblastoma: study population and prevalence of risk factors in Italy.

Background: Aetiology of childhood leukaemia and childhood neoplasm is poorly understood. Information on the prevalence of risk factors in the childhood population is limited. SETIL is a population based case-control study on childhood leukaemia, conducted with two companion studies on non-Hodgkin Lymphoma (NHL) and neuroblastoma.

Surviving childhood leukemia in a Latin culture: an explorative study based on young adults' written narratives.

This study investigated memories of childhood leukemia conveyed by survivors belonging to a Latin culture, exploring whether benefit findings was spontaneously reported, as by non-Latin survivors. Three hundred patients previously treated for leukemia were contacted by post/e-mail and asked to write freely about their illness experience. The 106 letters received were analyzed for narrative structure and content, according to a grounded theory approach.

Near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) as a new non-invasive tool to detect oxidative skeletal muscle impairment in children survived to acute lymphoblastic leukaemia.

Background: Separating out the effects of cancer and treatment between central and peripheral components of the O2 delivery chain should be of interest to clinicians for longitudinal evaluation of potential functional impairment in order to set appropriate individually tailored training/rehabilitation programmes. We propose a non-invasive method (NIRS, near infrared spectroscopy) to be used in routine clinical practice to evaluate a potential impairment of skeletal muscle oxidative capacity during exercise in children previously diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL). The purpose of this study was to evaluate the capacity of skeletal muscle to extract O2 in 10 children diagnosed with ALL, 1 year after the end of malignancy treatment, compared to a control group matched for gender and age (mean±SD = 7.

Childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia in Nicaragua: long-term results in the context of an international cooperative program.

Background: The aim of this paper is to describe the results of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) treatment in Nicaragua from 1995 to 2005 in the context of an international cooperation program.

Procedures: Patients <18 years with ALL were treated with two consecutive protocols (1995 and 2000). After a steroid prophase, a three-drug induction was administered in protocol 1995, and a four-drug induction, including asparaginase, was administered in protocol 2000.

Asociación de Hemato-Oncología Pediátrica de Centro América (AHOPCA): a model for sustainable development in pediatric oncology.

Bridging the survival gap for children with cancer, between those (the great majority) in low and middle income countries (LMIC) and their economically advantaged counterparts, is a challenge that has been addressed by twinning institutions in high income countries with centers in LMIC. The long-established partnership between a Central American consortium--Asociación de Hemato-Oncología Pediátrica de Centro América (AHOPCA)--and institutions in Europe and North America provides a striking example of such a twinning program. The demonstrable success of this endeavor offers a model for improving the health outcomes of children with cancer worldwide.

Treatment of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia in central America: a lower-middle income countries experience.

Background: Five Asociación de Hemato-Oncología de Centroamérica (AHOPCA) countries have used an adapted BFM-based protocol for childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL).

Procedure: In the AHOPCA-ALL 2008 protocol, patients were stratified by age, white blood cell count, immunophenotype, central nervous system involvement, day 8 prednisone response, and morphologic bone marrow response to induction therapy. Patients at Standard Risk (SR) received a three-drug induction regimen, a reinduction phase, and maintenance with protracted intrathecal therapy.

Intensive chemotherapy for childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia: results of the randomized intercontinental trial ALL IC-BFM 2002.

Purpose: From 2002 to 2007, the International Berlin-Frankfurt-Münster Study Group conducted a prospective randomized clinical trial (ALL IC-BFM 2002) for the management of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) in 15 countries on three continents. The aim of this trial was to explore the impact of differential delayed intensification (DI) on outcome in all risk groups.

Patients And Methods: For this trial, 5,060 eligible patients were divided into three risk groups according to age, WBC, early treatment response, and unfavorable genetic aberrations.

International cooperation for the cure and prevention of severe hemoglobinopathies.

Thalassemia major (TM) is the most frequent life-threatening noninfectious disease of childhood in the Middle East, South Asia, and Pacific Islands where it accounts for a significant proportion of childhood mortality, morbidity, and related health care expenses. In spite of major advances in supportive care during the last decade, many patients in low-income and middle-income countries still fare poorly because of high treatment costs and lack of accessible multidisciplinary teams, not to consider the risk of blood-borne infections, primarily hepatitis C. In selected low-risk patients with a compatible sibling, TM is highly curable by bone marrow transplantation (BMT), which also improves the quality of life and is cost-effective.

Planning cancer control in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Non-communicable diseases, including cancer, are overtaking infectious disease as the leading health-care threat in middle-income and low-income countries. Latin American and Caribbean countries are struggling to respond to increasing morbidity and death from advanced disease. Health ministries and health-care systems in these countries face many challenges caring for patients with advanced cancer: inadequate funding; inequitable distribution of resources and services; inadequate numbers, training, and distribution of health-care personnel and equipment; lack of adequate care for many populations based on socioeconomic, geographic, ethnic, and other factors; and current systems geared toward the needs of wealthy, urban minorities at a cost to the entire population.

Screening for coagulopathy and identification of children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia at a higher risk of symptomatic venous thrombosis: an AIEOP experience.

Introduction: Venous thromboembolic events (VTEs) are frequent complications of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) treatment. The aim of the study was to evaluate the rate of symptomatic VTEs in children with ALL and the predictive value of clinical and biological factors and routine monitoring of coagulation parameters in identifying children at a higher risk of this complication.

Materials And Methods: Between September 2000 and July 2006, 2042 children (≥1 and younger than 18 y) with newly diagnosed ALL were enrolled in Italy in the AIEOP (Italian Association of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology)-BFM (Berlin-Frankfurt-Muenster) ALL 2000 trial.