Improving care for individuals with serious infections who inject drugs.

Background: Hospitalizations for serious infections requiring long-term intravenous (IV) antimicrobials related to injection drug use have risen sharply over the last decade. At our rural tertiary care center, opportunities for treatment of underlying substance use disorders were often missed during these hospital admissions. Once medically stable, home IV antimicrobial therapy has not traditionally been offered to this patient population due to theoretical concerns about misuse of long-term IV catheters, leading to discharges with suboptimal treatment regimens, lengthy hospital stays, or care that is incongruent with patient goals and preferences.

Promoting community stakeholder engagement in research on treatment for pregnant women with opioid use disorder.

Community stakeholder engagement in research (CSER) can improve research relevance and efficiency as well as prevent harmful practices, particularly for vulnerable populations. Despite potential benefits, researchers lack familiarity with CSER methods. We describe CSER strategies used across the research continuum, including proposal development, study planning and the first years of a comparative effectiveness study of care for pregnant women with opioid use disorder.

Atypia of Undetermined Significance in Thyroid Fine Needle Aspirates: a 4-Year Audit of Thy3a Reporting.

Objective: Thyroid nodules are common within the general population. Cytological analysis of fine needle aspirates (FNAs) of these lesions allows for identification of those that require further surgery. A numerical classification system is in place to streamline reporting.

Comparison of radium-228 determination in water among Australian laboratories.

The National Health and Medical Research Council and Natural Resource Management Ministerial Council of Australia developed the current Australian Drinking Water Guidelines which recommend an annual radiation dose value of 1 mSv year. One of the potential major contributors to the radiation dose from drinking water is radium-228, a naturally occurring radionuclide arising from the thorium decay series. Various methods of analysing for radium-228 in water have been established and adapted by analytical radiochemistry laboratories.

Steroidal contraceptives and bone fractures in women: evidence from observational studies.

Background: Age-related decline in bone mass increases the risk of skeletal fractures, especially those of the hip, spine, and wrist. Steroidal contraceptives have been associated with changes in bone mineral density in women. Whether such changes affect the risk of fractures later in life is unclear.

Pegylated interferon-α induced hypoferremia is associated with the immediate response to treatment in hepatitis C.

Unlabelled: Pegylated interferon-α (PEG-IFN-α) forms an integral part of the current treatment for hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. PEG-IFN-α suppresses HCV production by augmenting the innate antiviral immune response. Recent studies have reported the induction of hepcidin, the iron regulatory hormone, by IFN-α in vitro.

Ask and act: Delaware physicians demonstrate the effectiveness of the American Academy of Family Physicians' initiative to promote tobacco cessation counseling.

The Ask and Act program of the American Academy of Family Physicians promotes family physician tobacco cessation counseling. Smoking and cessation counseling rates were obtained by cross-sectional analysis of electronic medical record data before and after initiation of the Ask and Act program in Delaware. Before the intervention, 24% of the patient population sampled were smokers and 70% of smokers had been counseled to quit smoking.

Olefination and group transfer reactions of an electron deficient tantalum methylidene complex.

The reactivity of an electronically unsaturated tantalum methylidene complex [TolC(NSiMe(3))(2)](2)Ta(CH(2))CH(3) supported by [TolC(NSiMe(3))(2)] amidinate ligands is described. Electrophilic addition and olefination reactions of the Ta=CH(2) functionality are reported. Alkylidene participates in group-transfer reactions not observed in sterically similar, but electronically saturated, analogues.