A Brief History of Evidence-Informed Decision Making for Nutrition in Mexico.

The Progresa Conditional Cash Transfer program in Mexico began in 1997, with a strong evidence-based design. The program's ultimate objective was to foster the development of human capital through 3 components-education, health, and food. Rigorous impact evaluation generated evidence of impact on several outcomes, including child growth, but also aspects of program design and implementation challenges that may have limited impact.

Supply-side interventions to improve health: Findings from the Salud Mesoamérica Initiative.

Background: Results-based aid (RBA) is increasingly used to incentivize action in health. In Mesoamerica, the region consisting of southern Mexico and Central America, the RBA project known as the Salud Mesoamérica Initiative (SMI) was designed to target disparities in maternal and child health, focusing on the poorest 20% of the population across the region.

Methods And Findings: Data were first collected in 365 intervention health facilities to establish a baseline of indicators.

Salud Mesoamérica 2015 Initiative: design, implementation, and baseline findings.

Background: Health has improved markedly in Mesoamerica, the region consisting of southern Mexico and Central America, over the past decade. Despite this progress, there remain substantial inequalities in health outcomes, access, and quality of medical care between and within countries. Poor, indigenous, and rural populations have considerably worse health indicators than national or regional averages.

Unintended effects of poverty programmes on childbearing in less developed countries: experimental evidence from Latin America.

Because conditional cash transfer (CCT) programmes (which make payments to poor households, conditional on their behaviour) potentially affect both household resource levels and parental preferences for quality vs. quantity of children, they may have unintended consequences for fertility. We use panel data from experimental CCT programmes in three Latin American countries to assess the unintended impact of these programmes on childbearing.

Prognostic meaning of temporary clipping in patients with intracranial aneurysm.

The prognostic meaning of the routine use of the methods of temporary clipping of the afferent vessel in patients with intracranial aneurysm (Grading 0-III) was the aim of the analysis in this study. In the period 1 January, 1991-31 December 1997, 304 patients underwent surgery for non-giant intracranial aneurysm and a follow-up angiography. 157 patients were operated by routinely using the temporary clipping of the afferent vessel, whereas in 147 patients the surgical procedure was performed by traditional methods.

Temporary clipping in the surgery of endocranial aneurysms.

The authors' experience in the routine use of temporary clipping procedures in the surgery of endocranial aneurysms is reported. To analyse the validity of such a method we compared the outcome in a series of 153 aneurysms operated according to the traditional procedure (temporary clipping of the afferent vessel only in the case of intraoperative rupture of the aneurysmatic sac) with that of a more recent series of 225 in which the procedure was applied routinely. An unsatisfactory surgical outcome was found in 12.

Factors affecting the therapeutic choice in patients with multivessel coronary artery disease. The Studio Lombardo Angiografia Multivasali (SLAM) Study Group.

Objective: To assess how clinical and angiographic findings are related to the decision to carry out coronary angioplasty (PTCA) or coronary bypass grafting in patients with multivessel coronary artery disease.

Design: Prospective survey carried out in 14 centres in the Lombardia region of Italy.

Patients: 1468 consecutive patients under going coronary arteriography for known or suspected ischaemic heart disease between May and October 1994, who were found to have multivessel coronary artery disease.

TAT, F1 + 2, and D-dimer levels in patients after coronary angiography with nonionic or ionic contrast media or after cardiac catheterization.

The prothrombotic effects of nonionic contrast media (NICM) have been evaluated in both biological and clinical studies. The question of whether there is a higher risk of thromboembolism during angiography with NICM than with ionic contrast media (ICM) has not yet been answered, nor has the precise role of the angiographic procedure per se in such complications been determined. The present study was performed to compare in vivo the potential prothrombotic effects during cardiac angiography of an NICM with those of an ICM, to estimate the effects of the procedure per se, and to assess how long these effects might be maintained.

[The role of the echo-dipyridamole test in the differential diagnosis of chest pain].

We have verified the utility of echo-dipyridamole test in the diagnosis of chest pain of unsure origin, especially in patients who cannot be quickly submitted to exercise stress test because of permanent abnormalities at basal ECG or because of clinical reasons. 17 patients with chest pain, abnormalities at basal ECG not evolutive and insignificant for myocardial ischemia, absence of enzymatic curve, were admitted to our hospital from September 1988 to January 1990. All these patients were submitted before the ninth and fifteenth day of hospitalization to the echo-dipyridamole test.

[Heart surgery complications during diagnostic coronary angiography. The experience of a nondepartmental hemodynamics laboratory].

The records of the Catheter Laboratory at S. Carlo Hospital in Milan (a District General Hospital without Cardiac Surgery Unit) between 1989-1991 were reviewed to determine how often emergency coronary by-pass surgery was performed because of a complication arising during elective coronary arteriography. A total of 1,009 cardiac procedures were performed, 876 (87%) were confined to left ventricular angiography and coronary arteriography in patients with suspected coronary artery disease.

[An unusual cause of arterial and venous pulmonary hypertension].

A 49 year old woman with syphilis of recent onset was repeatedly admitted to the hospital on account of recurrent dyspnoea and hemoptysis. The symptoms and radiological signs indicated the presence of a "cardiac lung". The ECG disclosed right ventricular overload which was confirmed by echocardiography.

[Comparative evaluation of mexiletine and propafenone by dynamic electrocardiography].

We have compared the efficacy of Propafenon and Mexiletine in 12 subjects (7 males and 5 females, age range of 22-61 year) affected by chronic ventricular extrasystolic beats. Propafenon and Mexiletine were orally administered in doses of 900 mg/day and 600 mg/day respectively in a single blind, cross-over fashion. Our results show that: Propafenon is better tolerated; Propafenon has caused a statistically significant reduction of the total number of ventricular ectopic beats/24 hours; the efficacy of Propafenon has been greater than that of Mexiletine (66% and 25% respectively); with both drugs, in 2 cases, there was an increase of the total number of ventricular ectopic beats/24 hours; Propafenon has induced clear-cut electrocardiogram changes (statistically significant lengthening of P-Q and Q-T intervals).

Course of intracranial pressure after extirpation of posterior fossa tumours.

Forty-seven patients with posterior fossa tumours underwent continuous monitoring of intracranial pressure (ICP) in the early postoperative period by means of an intraventricular catheter. ICP values were very low on the day of operation and subsequently became normal in 37 patients. ICP values were raised in 10 patients.

Multiple meningiomas. Report of nine cases.

Multiple meningiomas are a seldom encountered neoplasm. Most authors report an incidence ranging from 1 to 3% of all meningiomas. The routine use of CT has resolved diagnostic problems involved with multiple meningiomas; nevertheless, they still present several nosologic problems.

Relation of kinetocardiogram to systolic time intervals in patients with old myocardial infarction.

Left ventricular function was studied noninvasively in a group of 35 patients with noncomplicated and complicated old myocardial infarction (MI) by means of kinetocardiography (KCG) and systolic time intervals (STI). Discriminant analysis with a group of 130 normal subjects documented that STI were significantly abnormal and that the abnormalities, i.e.

[Threatening arrhythmia by uncommon digitalic toxicosis (author's transl)].

The authors describe the case of a 38 year old woman who ate some buds of "Helleborus viridis" collected in the mountains mistaken for wild asparagus. The clinical patterns were like in the digitalic toxicosis: the woman presented both ventricular and supraventricular threatening arrhythmias, gastro-enteric troubles, systemic hypotension. The patient improved with the glucose, potassium chloride and magnesium sulphate infusion and intravenous xylocaine.

Septum pellucidum oligodendroglioma. Case report and review of literature.

Neoplasms of septum pellucidum are rare. Only 124 cases have been published to which we must add the present case report. The literature is concerned with subependymomas and glioblastomas in most cases; there are only 13 cases of oligodendrogliomas.

[Unusual echocardiographic aspect of the pulmonary valve in a case of congestive cardiomyopathy].

A 38 years old woman with congestive cardiomyopathy, mild pulmonary hypertension and pulmonic valve unusual M-Mode echocardiographic pattern is described. A very important right ventricle failure, as in our patient, could explain this echocardiographic picture.

[Study of 4 cases of chronic subdural hematoma with unusual symptomatology].

Some cases of chronic subdural haematomas (in patients aged from 17 to 27 years) with unusual symptomatology and difficult diagnosis are presented. The usefulness of cerebral scintigraphy which can clarify any diagnostic doubt and lead to a right neuroradiological behaviour is underlined.