These results suggest that diamond-coated ultrasonic instruments will effectively plane roots, and that caution should be used during periodontal root planing procedures. Additionally, the diamond-coated instruments will produce a rougher surface than the plain inserts or the hand curettes.

No abstract

Recent studies have reported enhanced prostate cancer detection in Caucasians with serum human glandular kallikrein 2 (hK2) in combination with total-(tPSA) and free-prostate-specific antigen (fPSA). The purpose of this study is to validate these findings in an African-American patient cohort. A total of 137 AfricanAmerican men were found by routine screening to have tPSA levels above 2.5 ng/ ml or an abnormal digital rectal examination. Sera were drawn prior to biopsy of the prostate and Hybritech s PSA, FPSA and hK2 (for research use only, not for use in diagnostic procedures) concentrations were determined on Beckman Coulter's Access s immunoanalyzer. These independent variables and the ratios of percent fPSA (%fPSA), hK2/tPSA, hK2/fPSA, and hK2*tPSA/fPSA were compared between cancer and non-cancer groups. In all, 49 of 137 men had prostate cancer. hK2 and its calculated ratios outperformed tPSA on receiver operator characteristic (ROC) analysis, but %fPSA had statistically the highest area under the curve (AUC) at 0.801. When restricting the analysis to only the tPSA range of 4.0-10 ng/ ml, hK2/fPSA yielded the highest AUC (0.721). The ratio of hK2/fPSA was also found to increase the positive predictive value (PPV) of the %fPSA ranges less than 10 and 10-25%. %fPSA offered the best performance and highest specificity in prostate cancer detection in African-American males over the entire range of tPSA. hK2/fPSA may offer modest improvement in the tPSA range of 4.0-10 ng/ml. Furthermore, hK2/fPSA can enhance the PPV of low %fPSA values. Therefore, the use of multiple biomarkers may ultimately increase the specificity of prostate cancer screening in African-American men.

In chronic alcohol-administered, SIV-infected macaques, differential brain region susceptibility to inflammatory, viral, neurotropic, and alcohol insults was associated with neurocognitive impairment. In the prefrontal cortex, suppression of growth factor signaling may be an important neuropathological mechanism, while inflammatory processes play a more important role in the caudate and hippocampus.

The purpose of this open-label study was to evaluate the use of olanzapine in the treatment of children and adolescents with schizophrenia. Sixteen children who were 8-17 years of age and met DSM-IV criteria for schizophrenia were admitted into a 10-week, open-label, optimizing dose study of olanzapine. The Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS), the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS), and the Clinical Global Impression (CGI)-Severity/Improvement scales were used to assess improvement during the study. Of the 16 subjects who completed the study, 12 demonstrated significant improvement on end of treatment BPRS, CGI, and PANSS scores compared with baseline. Male subjects showed greater improvement and also gained more weight. Weight gain occurred in all but 2 subjects. Weight gain was significant, with patients averaging a gain of about 6.2 kg during the 6-week course of the study. Two of the subjects experienced extrapyramidal symptoms. The average dose of olanzapine for all subjects was 0.17 mg/kg.