Clustered randomised trial of an intervention to improve the management of asthma: Greenwich asthma study.

Objectives: To evaluate the effectiveness of an asthma resource centre in improving treatment and quality of life for asthmatic patients.

Design: Community based randomised controlled trial.

Setting: 41 general practices in Greenwich with a practice nurse.

Asthma in Greenwich, UK: impact of the disease and current management practices.

A great deal of the care of patients with asthma takes place in general practices. The aim of the present study was to describe the impact of asthma in the community and to identify current asthma self-management practices. A two-part questionnaire survey was conducted in a random sample (23%; n=24,398) of persons aged 16-50 yrs, registered with one of the 41 general practices in Greenwich, London, UK.

A reliable method to retrieve accident & emergency data stored on a free-text basis.

Accident & Emergency (A & E) data on asthma-related attendances are useful for studies on the effectiveness of asthma interventions, and to determine the relationship of environmental factors to asthma and asthma epidemics. The final diagnoses made in the A & E departments are not usually coded when entered into hospital databases in the U.K.

Prolonged clearance of microfilaraemia in patients with bancroftian filariasis after multiple high doses of ivermectin or diethylcarbamazine.

In a double-blind trial on 37 asymptomatic microfilaraemic subjects (minimum 400 microfilariae [mf] per mL) with Wuchereria bancrofti infection, the safety, tolerability and macrofilaricidal efficacy of 12 fortnightly doses of ivermectin, 400 micrograms/kg (ivermectin group), was compared with 12 fortnightly doses of diethylcarbamazine (DEC), 10 mg/kg (DEC group), over a period of 129 weeks after treatment. A control group (LDIC group) was treated with low dose ivermectin to clear microfilaraemia, for ethical reasons. Both ivermectin and DEC in high multiple doses were well tolerated and clinically safe.

On an infection of a human eye with Parastrongylus (= Angiostrongylus) sp. in Sri Lanka.

A metastrongyle worm extracted from the anterior chamber of the right eye of a patient in Sri Lanka belongs to the genus Parastrongylus and probably to a yet undescribed species, related to P. cantonensis well known to infect man. It is mostly a parasite of rodents, wandering in man and unadapted to this host.