Chance of psychiatric morbidity amongst recently diagnosed cancer outpatients attending a chemotherapy unit

The prevalent rate of psychiatry morbidity amongst patients with cancer reported in various studies ranges from 5 to 50 percent, a variation that can be attributed to differences in sample size, the disease itself and treatment factors. The objectives of the present study were to determine the frequency of psychiatric morbidity amongst recently diagnosed cancer outpatients and try to identify which factors might be related to further psychological distress. Two hundred and eleven (70.9 percent) female patients and 87 (29.1 percent) male patients from the chemotherapy unit of the Cancer Hospital A.C. Camargo (São Paulo) completed a questionnaire that featured data on demographic, medical and treatment details. The Self Reporting Questionnaire (SRQ-20) was administered to the patients to determine their personal psychiatric morbidity. Seventy-two patients (25.8 percent) scored > or = 8 in the SRQ-20, the cut-off point for a patient to be considered a psychiatric case. When the low and high scoring groups were compared no differences were detected regarding age, marital status, tumor site, sex, or previous treatment. Nonetheless, patients in the lowest social class and those who were bedridden less than 50 percent of the time had a significantly higher probability of being a psychiatric case. Regarding help-seeking behavior in situations in which they had doubts or were frightened, about 64 percent of the total sample did not seek any type of support and did not talk to anyone. This frequency of psychiatric morbidity agrees with data from the cancer literature. According to many investigators, the early detection of a comorbid psychiatric disorder is crucial to relieve a patient's suffering.

Estudo de confiabilidade da Escala Calgary de Depressäo para Esquizofrenia / Reliability study of the Portuguese version of the Calgary Depression Rating Scale to Schizophrenia

Os sintomas depressivos têm um impacto importante no curso e na qualidade de vida dos pacientes com esquizofrenia, podendo aparecer a qualquer momento ao longo da evoluçäo da doença. Como a identificaçäo e a mensuraçÝo dos sintomas depressivos säo consideradas difíceis nessa populaçäo, foi desenvolvida uma escala especialmente para esta, a Escala Calgary de Depressäo para Esquizofrenia (ECDE). O objetivo deste estudo foi avaliar a confiabilidade entre examinadores da versäo em português da ECDE. Quinze pacientes com esquizofrenia pelos critérios do DSM-IV foram avaliados por dois examinadores. Na análise dos itens a confiabilidae variou entre 0,63 e 1,00, mostrando bom desempenho da escala em nosso meio

Fotocoagulacao com laser argonio para tratamento da recorrencia pos-operatoria do pterigio. / Photocoagulation with argon laser for the treatment of postoperative recurrence of pterygium

Tratou-se, por fotocoagulacao por laser argonio, 11 olhos que apresentavam sinais biomicroscopicos de recorrencia, 5 a 110 dias apos a cirurgia para ressecao de pterigio. Constatou-se recidiva em todos os olhos tratados. Conclui-se pela ineficacia do metodo utilizado