National guidelines for evaluating pain-Patients' legal right to prioritised health care at multidisciplinary pain clinics in Norway implemented 2009.

Background All nations are posed with the challenge of deciding how to allocate limited health care resources. A Patients' Rights Law from 1999 gives patients in Norway with a serious health condition, for which there is efficacious and cost-effective treatment, a legal right to receive health care from the National Health Care system. Methods Recently national guidelines have been produced for implementing these legal rights within 32 fields of specialist health care.

Can stress-related shoulder and neck pain develop independently of muscle activity?

A case-control designed was used to investigate associations and interactions between muscle activity measured by surface electromyography (EMG) in the upper trapezius muscle and subjectively reported risk factors in workers with and without shoulder and neck pain. EMG data were collected both in the workplace (indicating vocational muscle activity) and in a laboratory setting (indicating non-specific muscle activity). Women in manual (15 pairs) and office (24 pairs) work were included.

Retinoic acid (RA): an inhibitor of 5 alpha-reductase in human prostatic cancer cells.

The effect of retinoic acid (RA) on testosterone metabolism was examined in a prostatic cancer cell line of human origin, PC-3. In cells growing as monolayers as well as in cell homogenates RA causes a dose-dependent inhibition of the 5 alpha-reductase activity, thus preventing the conversion of testosterone into its hormonally active metabolite, dihydrotestosterone. Fifty per cent inhibition of the enzyme activity occurred at an RA concentration of 2 x 10(-5)M.