Search

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to clarify the gaps in the recognition of medical terms mainly related to medicines between laypeople and medical practitioners in order to contribute to improving risk communication in the medical care field., Method: A total of 315 laypeople and 211 doctors were surveyed. To examine the gaps between them, we adopted 57 medical terms from the National Institute for Japanese Language and further added 33 medical terms. In total, 90 medical terms were used., Results: For the medical terms group into the "Expressed in other words of vernacular speech", the recognition by the laypeople was low and that estimated by the practitioners was high. For the newly added medical terms groups into the clinical-trial-related terms and medical terms related to side effects, the recognition by the laypeople was lower than that estimated by the practitioners. Moreover, the recognition values for above two groups were smaller than the other groups., Conclusions: The gaps between the basic recognition of the medical terms by laypeople and that estimated by the practitioners suggest that the possibility that patients cannot recognize much more difficult terms should be considered.

Factors such as low recovery rate and food contaminants may be responsible for the difficulty of detecting Norovirus (NV) by PCR in foodborne outbreaks. To detect NV more efficiently, we introduced a bacterial treatment, in which concentrated samples were incubated overnight with Klebsiella oxytoca at 35 degrees C before RNA extraction using the standard protocol. Recovery rates of NVs (G I/8 or G II/13) added to food suspensions in the modified method were compared with those in the standard method by quantification of NV RNAs using real-time PCR. Recovery rates in the modified method were 8.6% for G I/8 and 11.6% for G II/13 in 18 oyster samples and 13.9% for G I/8 and 19.6% for G II/13 in 15 other food samples, while those in the standard method were 0.3% for G I/8 and 0.5% for G II/13 in the oyster samples and 1.9% for G I/8 and 7.9% for G II/13 in the other food samples. These results indicate that the bacterial treatment increase the recovery of NV from foods such as oysters, suggesting that the modified method will be useful for NV detection in food samples.

We developed a multiplex real-time PCR assay to simultaneously detect herpes simplex virus-1 (HSV-1) and HSV-2 genomes. TaqMan PCR primer pairs and fluologenic probes targeting the HSV-1 or HSV-2 gpD region were originally designed. The detection limit was 15 copies/tube, and the quantitative range was from 15 to 1.5 x 10(6) copies/tube of HSV-1 or HSV-2 DNA. The sensitivity of this assay was 10(3) times higher than the conventional PCR assay. No other herpes virus DNA-Cytomegalovirus, Epstein-Barr virus, human herpes virus 6, human herpes virus 7, or varicella-zoster virus-were detected by this assay. These results indicated that the multiplex real-time PCR assay is useful for rapidly diagnosing HSV-1 and HSV-2.

As a preventive action plan against gastroenteritis caused by the Norovirus (NV), we studied hand hygiene effects using with three hand rubbing products, four wet wipe products, and two functional water types using Feline Calicivirus as a Norovirus surrogate. After treatment using antiseptic hand rubbing products containing chlorhexidine, quaternary ammonium, and povidone-iodine, high inactivation detected by TCID50 was observed compared to products containing povidone-iodine, although no difference was seen in viral removal measured by the amount of viral genome copies in real-time-PCR. Among wet wipes soaked in chlorhexidine, quaternary ammonium, benzoic acid and PHMB, two groups showed viral inactivation and removal. Two products were more effective for functional water, viral decrease was seen in rinsing in running electrolyzed acid water and handwashing by soap. Results underscore the importance of selection in hand washing metheds (alternative soap and also) in preventing viral gastroenteritis.