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Query: UMLS:C0086543 (cataract)
 29,165 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Diabetes eye complications, and particularly diabetic retinopathy, are the major cause of blindness in the working age groups of industrialised countries. Laser photocoagulation has been proven to reduce blindness due to retinopathy by at least 60% but even more patients would benefit if treatment were delivered at an early enough stage. High risk retinopathy, though, does not cause visual symptoms and when the latter occur it is often too late to reverse them. Hence, a screening programme for diabetic retinopathy should aim at detecting patients at risk when they can still be effectively treated. This can be obtained by regularly checking the patients' eyes. Its target, as defined by the joint World Health Organisation/International Diabetes Federation Saint Vincent Declaration Working Group, is to reduce diabetes-related blindness by one third or more in the next 5 years. The number of persons to be screened is high, 30,000/million total population/year, but available data indicate that this is feasible and that the initial investments in professional and material resources are more than justified by the reduction of preventable blindness and of the financial burdens that go with it. Indeed, prevention of the major cause of blindness in the working age should rate the same priority as other widely deployed programmes, such as those to screen for cancer, neonatal hypothyroidism and phenylketonuria. The concerted action of government health departments, patients' and professional associations will be vital for the successful implementation of this programme. The texts of this document (a protocol for the screening of diabetic retinopathy and cataract), Appendix 1 (data collection card) and Appendix 2 (informative leaflet for the patients) were approved by 57 specialists, representing 30 diabetic and ophthalmic societies from 21 European countries, and endorsed for translation into all European languages and distribution at the appropriate levels.
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PMID:Protocols for screening and treatment of diabetic retinopathy in Europe. 182 Nov 98

The different types of biological effects produced by ionizing radiations are reviewed. Among the early effects following an acute exposure, the bone marrow syndrome and the intestinal syndrome are briefly described. They are unlikely to appear in the current conditions encountered in dental radiology. As far as skin exposure is concerned (e.g. fingers, hands), acute reactions (moist desquamation, ulceration, etc.) require high doses which are encountered only in accidental conditions. However, chronic dermatitis after repeated low dose exposure is one of the major risks in dental radiology (even without previous acute lesions), if the recommendations of radioprotection are not followed. The danger is ultimately the transformation into a radio-induced skin cancer. Among the late effects, after chronic exposure at low doses, cancer induction and the genetic effects are the most important. The risk coefficient for cancer induction is expressed by the number of lethal cancers induced per unit dose. In his last report (1988), the UNSCEAR assessed the risk coefficient between 4.5 and 7% for an absorbed dose of 1 Gy (low-LET radiation, high dose delivered at high dose rate). A low doses and low dose rates (X-and gamma rays), the UNSCEAR recommends to reduce the above risk coefficients by a factor between 2 and 10. The risk coefficient at low doses is difficult to evaluate since the rate of radio-induced cancers is small compared to the spontaneous cancer incidence. The risk of a severe genetic effect is about 1/3-1/4 of the risk of lethality from radio-induced cancer. Finally, the characteristics of the stochastic and non-stochastic effects are described. The acute effects, the late radiodermatitis and the cataract are examples of non-stochastic effects, while cancer induction and the genetic effect are stochastic effects. In the Appendix, the most important quantities and units, used in radiation protection, are presented.
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PMID:[Radiology and radiation protection in dental medicine. 1: Biological effects resulting from exposure to ionizing radiation]. 187 86

Favor, in the Appendix to a paper by Ehling and his collaborators (Ehling et al., 1982), develops a method that tests for the presence of a partially penetrant dominant cataract mutation in a suspected parent (showing lens opacity) outcrossed to a homozygous strain-101 mouse when no individual with lens opacity is observed in the progeny. This method, based on the Chi-square distribution, is examined as to the validity of the Normal approximation. An alternative procedure is discussed.
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PMID:Testing for the presence of a partially penetrant dominant gene. 633 69