Implementing touch-screen technology to enhance recognition of distress.

Objective: The University of California, San Diego, Moores Cancer Center implemented a systematic approach for patients to communicate with their health-care team in real-time regarding psychosocial problem-related distress using touch-screen technology. The purpose of this report is to describe our experience in implementing touch-screen problem-related distress screening as the standard of care for all outpatients in a health-care setting. Although early identification of distress has recently gained wide attention, the practical issues of implementing psychosocial screening with and without the use of technology have not been fully addressed or investigated.

Web services-based access to local clinical trial databases: a standards initiative of the Association of American Cancer Institutes.

Electronic discovery of the clinical trials being performed at a specific research center is a challenging task, which presently requires manual review of the center's locally maintained databases or web pages of protocol listings. Near real-time automated discovery of available trials would increase the efficiency and effectiveness of clinical trial searching, and would facilitate the development of new services for information providers and consumers. Automated discovery efforts to date have been hindered by issues such as disparate database schemas, vocabularies, and insufficient standards for easy intersystem exchange of high-level data, but adequate infrastructure now exists that make possible the development of applications for near real-time automated discovery of trials.

Role of apolipoprotein E receptors in regulating the differential in vivo neurotrophic effects of apolipoprotein E.

Apolipoprotein E (apoE) is known to bind to at least five receptors, including the low-density lipoprotein (LDL) receptor-related protein (LRP), very low density LDL receptor (VLDL-R), LDL-R, apoE receptor 2 (apoER2), and megalin/gp330. In this context, the main objective of the present study was to better understand the contributions of LRP and LDL-R to the in vivo neurotrophic effects of apoE. For this purpose, apoE-deficient and receptor-associated protein (RAP)-deficient mice were infused with recombinant apoE3, RAP, or saline.

Altered expression of synaptic proteins occurs early during progression of Alzheimer's disease.

The expression levels of three synaptic proteins (synaptophysin, synaptotagmin, and growth-associated protein 43 [GAP43]) in AD cases clinically classified by Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR) score were analyzed. Compared with control subjects (CDR = 0), mild (early) AD (CDR = 0.5 to 1) cases had a 25% loss of synaptophysin immunoreactivity.

Changes in pathological findings at autopsy in AIDS cases for the last 15 years.

Objective: To analyze changes in frequency of systemic AIDS pathology over time and its relationship to central nervous system pathology.

Design And Methods: A total of 390 AIDS autopsy cases obtained at University of California at San Diego Medical Center from 1982 to 1998 were reviewed retrospectively and linear regression analysis was used to evaluate significance of changes over time.

Results: Overall, the frequency of cytomegalovirus, Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia and Mycobacterium avium complex decreased, whereas bacterial infections increased and the frequency of fungal infection remained unchanged over time.