Preconditioning with brief ischemia before a sustained period of ischemia reduces infarct size in the perfused heart. A cultured chick ventricular myocyte model was developed to investigate the role of adenosine receptor subtypes in cardiac preconditioning. Brief hypoxic exposure, termed preconditioning hypoxia, prior to prolonged hypoxia, protected myocytes against injury induced by the prolonged hypoxia.

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This report addresses the consistency of reporting in the contraceptive calendar in the 1992 and 1995 Morocco Demographic and Health Surveys. Because a panel design was used in these surveys, the same women were interviewed in both years, providing a unique opportunity to examine the reliability of responses. Measures of reliability for various aspects of contraceptive-use dynamics are computed, and the impact of reporting errors on contraceptive failure, discontinuation, and switching rates is estimated. Results suggest that reporting of contraceptive behavior in Moroccan DHS calendar data appears to be relatively reliable at the aggregate level. Individual respondents, particularly those whose contraceptive patterns have been complex, have a lower level of reliability. The observed inconsistencies do not appear to affect aggregate-level estimates of contraceptive prevalence; however, measures of contraceptive-use dynamics are less stable.

Because the research design for the clinical trial establishing the contraceptive efficacy of the female condom--a six-month life-table probability of failure of 15% (12% in the United States vs. 22% in Latin America)--did not include randomization with another method of contraception, no definite conclusion about its comparative efficacy is possible. Comparisons using other female barrier methods as historical controls, however, provide evidence that, among women in the United States, the contraceptive efficacy of the female condom during typical use is not significantly different from that of the diaphragm, the sponge or the cervical cap. The six-month probability of failure during perfect use of the female condom is 2.6% among U.S. women, similar to rates for the diaphragm and the cervical cap but significantly lower than that for the sponge. Meaningful comparisons with the male condom are not possible because of the lack of data from carefully controlled prospective clinical trials. Extrapolations from the results on contraceptive efficacy suggest that perfect use of the female condom may reduce the annual risk of acquiring the human immunodeficiency virus by more than 90% among women who have intercourse twice weekly with an infected male.

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