Highlights At-risk women receiving online skin self-examination education initiated mole checks. Women receiving skin self-examination education sought health care when necessary. Provided education increased confidence in mole checking and did not affect anxiety. Women trained to do skin checks had fewer appointments for benign mole than controls. Detection of early melanomas was facilitated by skin self-examination education.

Desiccating human red blood cells (RBCs) to increase their storage life has been the subject of intense research for a number of years. However, drying RBCs invariably compromises their integrity and has detrimental effects on hemoglobin function due to autoxidation. We have previously demonstrated an RBC desiccation and rehydration process that preserves RBC antigenic epitopes better than frozen RBCs. This study expands on those observations by examining what effects this desiccation process has on RBC hemoglobin function with respect to oxygen binding properties. In this paper, we examined RBCs from normal donors which were desiccated to 25% moisture content and stored dry for 2 weeks at room temperature prior to rehydration with plasma followed by structural and functional studies. Our data showed that approximately 98% of the RBCs were intact upon rehydration based on hemolysis assays. Oxygen dissociation curves for the desiccated/rehydrated RBCs showed a left shift compared to fresh RBCs (pO2 = 17 mmHg vs. 26 mmHg, respectively). The desiccated/rehydrated RBCs also showed an increase in methemoglobin compared to fresh RBCs (4.5% vs 0.9%, respectively). 2,3-Diphosphoglycerate concentration of the desiccated/rehydrated RBCs was reduced by 20%. In conclusion, although this RBC dehydration process preserves RBC integrity and hemoglobin oxygen binding properties better than most other dehydration techniques described so far, further optimization and long-term studies are needed to make this procedure acceptable for human transfusion.

No abstract

Malawi has one of the highest rates of HIV prevalence in the world, and accounts for 4% of the total number of people living in sub-Saharan Africa with HIV. Approximately one million people in Malawi were living with HIV in 2016, with 24,000 HIV-related deaths. The Option B+ program, first implemented in Malawi, aimed to initiate ART for all pregnant women, regardless of their CD4 cell count or disease stage. This study serves to analyze and assess the effectiveness of Option B+ retention, in relation to the facilitation of how various social and cultural barriers were handled. A literature review of 29 publications was conducted. Careful evaluation of various studies indicates that although there is a myriad of reasons explaining low levels of retention, the women who were at the highest risk for low retention were young pregnant women who were treated on the same day of HIV-diagnosis. Solutions focused around women and their partners or communities showed promising evidence of success in increasing adherence, as these strategies likely provided women reliable social and emotional support to address major barriers to retention such as a lack of support from male partners, ineffective education from healthcare workers, or stigma towards their HIV disclosure statue.

No abstract