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Context: To compare family physicians' ability to retain information when reading a review article on paper vs on screen, and in their mother tongue vs in English., Methods: Randomized trial of 114 Scandinavian family physicians who read a review article in October or November 2000 from the Journal of Trauma for 10 minutes either on paper and in English, on screen and in English, on paper in their mother tongue, or on screen in their mother tongue. To assess comprehension, they immediately completed a questionnaire with 6 open questions about 13 key facts from the review article. Sum score was on a scale from 0 (no correct answers) to 13 points (all questions answered correctly)., Results: There was no significant difference between readers of paper vs screen versions, with a median (interquartile range [IQR]) of 4 (2-6) vs 4 (2-5), respectively (P =.97). Physicians who read in their mother tongue scored significantly higher than those who read in English, with a median (IQR) of 4 (3-6) vs 3 (2-4) (P =.01)., Conclusion: The medium (paper vs screen) did not influence the ability of family physicians to retain medical information. They best retained medical information when reading in their mother tongue.

A 27-year-old woman experienced pruritus, eye and throat irritation, hoarseness, shortness of breath, and fatigue within half and hour of exposure to carbonless copy paper. On two separate occasions, she was purposely challenged in a controlled-blinded fashion with portions of the carbonless copy paper. This resulted on both occasions in contact urticaria of the hand that held the paper and changes in pulmonary function flow-volume loops characteristic of upper airway obstruction. To determine if alterations in prostaglandin (PG) metabolism might explain these findings, plasma PGF2 alpha and thromboxane B2 (both capable of causing these symptoms) were measured before and during the second exposure period. Both PGF2 alpha and thromboxane B2 increased substantially. We conclude that the cutaneous and respiratory symptoms induced by carbonless copy paper were probably related to PG release.