Knowledge, attitude and practice of breast cancer screening among women visiting primary health care centers in Dubai

Breast cancer continues to be a major public health problem. Globally, breast cancer is the most common malignant neoplasm among women. The cornerstones of breast cancer prevention are early detection and prompt treatment. A breast self-examination [BSE], clinical examination, and mammography make up the conventional early detection approach. Knowledge, attitude and practices are crucial factors in breast cancer early detection and treatment. Is to evaluate knowledge, attitude and practice of women towards breast cancer screening and to identify potential barriers to screening among women users of health centers. A cross sectional study was conducted in four primary health care centers [PHC] which were selected randomly out of eleven. Systematic random sample was used for selection of the women attending these centers above 40 years by choosing of every other one to be included. The visits carried out daily over 2 months period [September - October] in 2008, some clients refused to participate in the interview, the final sample eligible for analysis was 532 clients out of 560, with the response rate of 95%. The participants were subjected to the following tools: interview questionnaire including the following: socidemographic data, obstetric data, data on menopause, knowledge, attitude about breast cancer disease and breast cancer screening and practice of breast cancer screening methods and barriers of practicing. The present study displayed that an overall, 6.2% of the women had good knowledge and 73.9% of the women had poor knowledge level about the breast cancer and its screening methods. Regarding the attitude, it was found that 59.8% of positive attitude, while 35.5% and 4.7% of the women had neutral and negative attitude respectively. By studying the practice the breast cancer screening methods, it was found that 59.8% of the studied women didn't practice breast self-examination, [58.5%] didn't practice clinical breast examination and 80.8% of the women didn't practice mammography. This study has revealed poor knowledge and attitude of breast cancer and its screening methods as well as low level of practice of breast cancer screening among local women. Women must be educated regarding the importance of breast self-examination, clinical breast examination and mammography after the appropriate age. Doctors need to be more proactive in suggesting regular screening tests. Demonstrations of correct technique of breast self-examination using audio and ' visual aids should be done while a clinical breast examination as part of routine physical checkup might help in making women more "breast health aware". Breast cancer awareness education should be integrated into existing health education programs within hospital settings and at government level

role of mitomycin drug in the prevention of pterygium recurrence after surgical removal

This study was carried out on 100 eyes of 100 patients with primary pterygium attending the Outpatient Ophthalmology Clinic of Alexandria University Hospitals. All eyes had their pterygium excised with a standard bare sclera technique and then the eyes were randomized to four groups each comprising 25 eyes. Group A received mitomycin eye drops in a concentration of 0.04% one drop four times daily for 14 days. Group B received mitomycin eye drops 0.02% one drop four times daily for 14 days. Group C received mitomycin eye drops 0.02% one drop twice daily for 5 days and group D received balanced salt solution one drop four times daily for 14 days and this group acted as a control. The eyes were followed up for a maximum of 32 weeks to record differences between the four groups regarding corneal and conjunctival wound healing time, incidence of complications and incidence and timing of recurrence as well as to delineate the statistical significance of any differences obtained with any of the variables studied, in addition to a correlation analysis for the incidence of recurrence versus a number of selected variables. The study showed that there was a statistically significant difference regarding conjunctival wound healing time between the four groups [p = 0.000], incidence of complications by score [p = 0.005] and incidence of recurrence [p = 0.001]. Recurrence was found to correlate significantly only with conjunctival healing time [p = 0.01] with a negative type of correlation. It was shown that the best regimen for topical postoperative application of mitomycin eye drops would be that of 0.02% twice daily for 5 days producing optimal conjunctival healing time, least complications and a fairly very low incidence of recurrence

Immunohistopathological study of pterygium

The pterygial tissue excised from 30 eyes of 30 patients with primary pterygium were subjected to immunohistopathological staining in order to identify the type of antibodies present within such growth. Immunoglobulin E was found in 27 specimens [90%], while immunoglobulin G was found in 23 specimens [76.6%]. From the above findings, it could be assumed that pterygium formation may be a type 1 hypersensitivity reaction. Despite the commonality of pterygium, little is truly known about its etiology. Many theories have been proposed to explain the cause of pterygium, however, most of these theories cannot be reconciled with known facts. It was found that chronic inflammation in the form of conjunctivitis or episcleritis initiates the process. An allergic theory was proposed by Hilgers, while Taylor specifically incriminated exposure to ultraviolet B as the causative factor