Effects of the culturally-sensitive comprehensive sex education programme among Thai secondary school students.

Aim: This paper reports on a study to evaluate the effectiveness of a culturally-sensitive comprehensive sex education programme among Thai secondary school students.

Background: Increasing number of adolescents in Thailand have been engaging in premarital sex. No theory-based, abstinence-oriented models of sex education have been evaluated in this population.

Contraception in perimenopause.

Women in their forties are still potentially fertile, and pregnancy in this age group is attended with increased maternal mortality, spontaneous abortion, fetal anomalies and perinatal mortality. Contraception for women in this age group has special risks and benefits; both should be balanced to choose between the different options available. Recent epidemiological and clinical pharmacology studies have indicated the safety of extending the use of combined oral contraceptives (COCs) beyond the age of 35 years and up to menopause.

A new approach for the detection of cervical cancer in Thai women.

Objectives: The objective was to screen cervical cell samples of Thai women by using the Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectrophotometry technique; the results were compared to the histologic diagnosis (gold standard).

Methods: FTIR spectrophotometry is a new technology for cervical cancer screening. Instead of detecting the morphological changes as used in Pap smear test, this technique detects, at the molecular level, structural changes of functional groups through the changes of the infrared absorption spectrum.

Increase in tumour necrosis factor-alpha and a change in the lactate dehydrogenase isoenzyme pattern in plasma of workers exposed to aflatoxin-contaminated feeds.

Six types of animal-feed ingredients and swine mixed feeds from factories in northern Thailand were sampled for analysis of mycotoxins. Mycotoxins found in foodstuffs included aflatoxins, fumonisins, ochratoxins, T-2 toxin, vomitoxin and zearalenone. Samples of airborne dust generated while handling animal feed were collected and analysed to assess exposure of workers to aflatoxins.

Shift in FTIR spectrum patterns in methomyl-exposed rat spleen cells.

Methomyl is a highly toxic carbamate insecticide which is widely used in many agricultural countries. We have applied the Fourier-transformed infrared (FTIR) spectroscopic method to study the toxicity of methomyl on cytoskeletal protein and the nucleic acid of rat spleen cells. Rats were given methomyl by gavage at 2, 6 and 8 mg/kg in single doses.