Topical fluorides: efficacy, administration, and safety

Fluoride's role in decreasing dental caries has been recognized for decades. The professional fluoride treatment has recently been augmented with home-use fluoride products. The introduction of many attractive products makes it difficult for dental professionals to know which are effective. Both professional and home-use products are described, as are proven techniques for their use. Recognition of fluoride toxicity, and its prevention and treatment, are also discussed.     

Estimation and removal of baseline drift in the electrocardiogram

Estimation procedures for baseline drift have been developed using cubic spline, polynomial, and rational functions. In a test set of 50 electrocardiograms (ECGs), each of 2.5-sec duration, baseline stability was significantly improved by application of any of these methods, except rational function approximation. Amplitude histograms of clinical ECGs after subtraction of estimated baseline distortions showed only small baseline variations over the recording period. For a quantitative validation of the estimation procedures, 10 ECGs with artificial baseline drift were constructed and analyzed by correlation and mean square error calculations. From these comparisons, the polynomial approximation emerged as the most efficient method.     

Standards for diagnosis and management of invasive breast carcinoma. American College of Radiology. American College of Surgeons. College of American Pathologists. Society of Surgical Oncology

Because knowledge has advanced in several fields related to the treatment of early breast cancer, revising the landmark 1992 standards for breast-conservation treatment by these four organizations is appropriate. The current report reviews and summarizes the literature and describes the selection and evaluation of patients, the technical aspects of surgical treatment and irradiation, follow-up care, and areas for further research.     

Comparison of paper-and-pencil versus Web administration of the Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS): Participation,data quality,and perceived privacy and anonymity

The Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS) monitors priority health-risk behaviors among US high school students. To better understand the ramifications of changing the YRBSS from paper-and-pencil to Web administration, in 2008 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention conducted a study comparing these two modes of administration. Eighty-five schools in 15 states agreed to participate in the study. Within each participating school, four classrooms of students in grades 9 or 10 were randomly assigned to complete the Youth Risk Behavior Survey questionnaire in one of four conditions (in-class paper-and-pencil, in-class Web without programmed skip patterns, in-class Web with programmed skip patterns, and “on your own” Web without programmed skip patterns). Findings included less missing data for the paper-and-pencil condition (1.5% vs. 5.3%, 4.4%, 6.4%; p < .001), less perceived privacy and anonymity among respondents for the in-class Web conditions, and a lower response rate for the “on your own” Web condition than for in-class administration by either mode (28.0% vs. 91.2%, 90.1%, 91.4%; p < .001). Although Web administration might be useful for some surveys, these findings do not favor the use of a Web survey for the YRBSS.