Citations

Objectives: Despite substantial evidence supporting the efficacy of stimulant medication for children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), adherence to stimulant treatment is often suboptimal. Applying social/cognitive theories to understanding and assessing parent attitudes toward initiating medication may provide insight into factors influencing parent decisions to follow ADHD treatment recommendations. This report describes results from formative research that used focus groups to obtain parent input to guide development of a provider-delivered intervention to improve adherence to stimulants. Methods: Participants were caregivers of children with ADHD who were given a stimulant treatment recommendation. Focus groups were recorded and transcribed verbatim. Data were analyzed by inductive, grounded theory methods as well as a deductive analytic strategy using an adapted version of the Unified Theory of Behavior Change to organize and understand parent accounts. Results: Five groups were conducted with 27 parents (mean child age=9.35 years; standard deviation [SD]=2.00), mean time since diagnosis=3.33 years (SD=2.47). Most parents (81.5%) had pursued stimulant treatment. Inductive analysis revealed 17 attitudes facilitating adherence and 25 barriers. Facilitators included parent beliefs that medication treatment resulted in multiple functional gains and that treatment was imperative for their children's safety. Barriers included fears of personality changes and medication side effects. Complex patterns of parent adherence to medication regimens were also identified, as well as preferences for psychiatrists who were diagnostically expert, gave psychoeducation using multiple modalities, and used a chronic illness metaphor to explain ADHD. Theory-based analyses revealed conflicting expectancies about treatment risks and benefits, significant family pressures to avoid medication, guilt and concern that their children required medication, and distorted ideas about treatment risks. Parents, however, took pride in successfully pursuing efforts to manage their child behaviorally and to avoid medication when possible. Conclusions: Focus group data identified social, cognitive, and affective influences on treatment decision making. Results support prior research comparing family/social functioning, physician characteristics, and adherence. Findings suggest that parent attitudes to psychiatric care need to be assessed comprehensively at initial evaluation to aid the development of psychoeducational messages, and a more careful consideration about how parents interpret and respond to adherence-related questioning.

Hibernating mammals have developed many physiological adaptations to extreme environments. During hibernation, 13-lined ground squirrels ( Ictidomys tridecemlineatus) must suppress hemostasis to survive prolonged body temperatures of 4–8°C and 3–5 heartbeats per minute without forming lethal clots. Upon arousal in the spring, these ground squirrels must be able to quickly restore normal clotting activity to avoid bleeding. Here we show that ground squirrel platelets stored in vivo at 4–8°C were released back into the blood within 2 h of arousal in the spring with a body temperature of 37°C but were not rapidly cleared from circulation. These released platelets were capable of forming stable clots and remained in circulation for at least 2 days before newly synthesized platelets were detected. Transfusion of autologous platelets stored at 4°C or 37°C showed the same clearance rates in ground squirrels, whereas rat platelets stored in the cold had a 140-fold increase in clearance rate. Our results demonstrate that ground squirrel platelets appear to be resistant to the platelet cold storage lesions observed in other mammals, allowing prolonged storage in cold stasis and preventing rapid clearance upon spring arousal. Elucidating these adaptations could lead to the development of methods to store human platelets in the cold, extending their shelf life.

The purpose of this study was to compare two different methods of joining tendons of similar and dissimilar sizes between recipient and donor tendons for flexor tendon grafts. Flexor digitorum profundus (FDP) and peroneus longus (PL) canine tendons were harvested and divided into four groups. The repair technique we compared was a step-cut (SC) suture and a Pulvertaft weave (PW). FDP tendons were significantly larger in diameter than PL tendons ( p < 0.05). The volume of the SC repairs using either FDP or PL tendon as a graft was significantly smaller than PW repairs ( p < 0.05). The ultimate load to failure and repair stiffness in FDP graft tendons significantly increased compared with the PL graft tendons ( p < 0.05). The SC suture can be used as an alternative to the PW, with similar strength and less bulk for repairs using graft tendons of similar diameter. Surgeons should be aware of the effect of graft tendon size and repair method on strength and bulk when performing flexor tendon grafts.

Abstract Background: Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) identified variants at 19p13.1 and ZNF365 (10q21.2) as risk factors for breast cancer among BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers, respectively. We explored associations with ovarian cancer and with breast cancer by tumor histopathology for these variants in mutation carriers from the Consortium of Investigators of Modifiers of BRCA1/2 (CIMBA). Methods: Genotyping data for 12,599 BRCA1 and 7,132 BRCA2 mutation carriers from 40 studies were combined. Results: We confirmed associations between rs8170 at 19p13.1 and breast cancer risk for BRCA1 mutation carriers [HR, 1.17; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.07–1.27; P = 7.42 × 10−4] and between rs16917302 at ZNF365 (HR, 0.84; 95% CI, 0.73–0.97; P = 0.017) but not rs311499 at 20q13.3 (HR, 1.11; 95% CI, 0.94–1.31; P = 0.22) and breast cancer risk for BRCA2 mutation carriers. Analyses based on tumor histopathology showed that 19p13 variants were predominantly associated with estrogen receptor (ER)-negative breast cancer for both BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers, whereas rs16917302 at ZNF365 was mainly associated with ER-positive breast cancer for both BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers. We also found for the first time that rs67397200 at 19p13.1 was associated with an increased risk of ovarian cancer for BRCA1 (HR, 1.16; 95% CI, 1.05–1.29; P = 3.8 × 10−4) and BRCA2 mutation carriers (HR, 1.30; 95% CI, 1.10–1.52; P = 1.8 × 10−3). Conclusions: 19p13.1 and ZNF365 are susceptibility loci for ovarian cancer and ER subtypes of breast cancer among BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers. Impact: These findings can lead to an improved understanding of tumor development and may prove useful for breast and ovarian cancer risk prediction for BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev; 21(4); 645–57. ©2012 AACR.