An electronic thesaurus of Evidence Based Laboratory Medicine hematological and biochemical diagnostic tests.

The adoption of Evidence Based Laboratory Medicine (EBLM) has been hampered until today by the lack of effective tools. The SIMeL EBLM e-Thesaurus (on-line Repertoire of the diagnostic effectiveness of the laboratory, radiology and cardiology test) provides a useful support to clinical laboratory professionals and to clinicians for the interpretation of the diagnostic tests. The e-Thesaurus is an application developed using Microsoft Active Server Pages technology and carried out with Web Server Microsoft Internet Information Server and is available at the SIMeL website using a browser running JavaScript scripts (Internet Explorer is recommended). It contains a database (in Italian, English and Spanish) of the sensitivity and specificity (including the 95% confidence interval), the positive and negative likelihood ratios, the Diagnostic Odds Ratio and the Number Needed to Diagnose of more than 2000 diagnostic (most laboratory but also cardiology and radiology) tests. The e-Thesaurus improves the previous SIMeL paper and CD Thesaurus; its main features are a three languages search and a continuous and an easy updating capability.

[Morbidity from acute respiratory infections in a small community in La Habana City]. / Estudio de la morbilidad por infecciones respiratorias agudas en una pequeña comunidad de Ciudad de La Habana.

A survey was made on morbidity due to acute respiratory infections in a circumscription of the Cristobal Labra Polyclinic, from January 17 to March 2, 1987, in order to contribute some clarifications about such an important health-disease problem. The sample was made up of 75 families representing 297 inhabitants. Questioning included all family members that in the 14 days previous to the visit referred to have or to have had symptoms of acute respiratory infections. The so-called real morbidity index was reached.