Search

Introduction: Varying public views on cannabis use across countries may explain the variation in the prevalence of use, policies, and research in individual countries, and global regulation of cannabis. This paper aims to describe the current state of cannabis use, policies, and research across sixteen countries.Methods: PubMed and Google Scholar were searched for studies published from 2010 to 2020. Searches were conducted using the relevant country of interest as a search term (e.g., "Iran"), as well as relevant predefined keywords such as "cannabis," "marijuana," "hashish," "bhang "dual diagnosis," "use," "addiction," "prevalence," "co-morbidity," "substance use disorder," "legalization" or "policy" (in English and non-English languages). These keywords were used in multiple combinations to create the search string for studies' titles and abstracts. Official websites of respective governments and international organizations were also searched in English and non-English languages (using countries national languages) to identify the current state of cannabis use, policies, and research in each of those countries.Results: The main findings were inconsistent and heterogeneous reporting of cannabis use, variation in policies (e.g., legalization), and variation in intervention strategies across the countries reviewed. European countries dominate the cannabis research output indexed on PubMed, in contrast to Asian countries (Thailand, Malaysia, India, Iran, and Nepal).Conclusions: Although global cannabis regulation is ongoing, the existing heterogeneities across countries in terms of policies and epidemiology can increase the burden of cannabis use disorders disproportionately and unpredictably. There is an urgent need to develop global strategies to address these cross-country barriers to improve early detection, prevention, and interventions for cannabis use and related disorders.

L’hémodialyse constitue le traitement de choix pour les patients souffrantd’insuffisance rénale chronique. Cependant, cette technique présente plusieurs effets indésirables tels la production excessive des radicaux libres menant à la génération du stress oxydant et la libération des facteurs inflammatoires menant à des complications à long terme. Le but de cet article consiste à donner une vue générale sur le processus d’hémodialyse et les facteurs clés engendrés par cette technique, tels le stress oxydant et l’inflammation, qui influencent la qualité de vie des patients hémodialysés.Mots clés: Hémodialyse ; Stress Oxydatif ; Inflammation ;Biocompatibilité.

Gastric diverticula are rare in childhood. Usually, they are incidentally diagnosed on radiographic examination or seen in upper endoscopy. Eleven year old girl reported chronic abdominal pain with a gastric diverticulum. On the light of this case, we discuss epidemiologic, pathogenesis, diagnosis, and surgical treatment aspects. This last aspect consists of simple excision of the Diverticulum either in symptomatic or complicated forms of this pathology. Keywords: diverticulum, stomach, child, endoscopy, surgery > African Journal of Paediatric Surgery Vol. 3 (2) 2006: pp. 77-79

Enteric duplication could occur through the entire alimentary tract. A case of rectal duplication cyst with heterotopic gastric mucosa in a chid is described. MRI scan is shown useful in the diagnosis of the duplication. The treatment is the complete local resection of the rectal duplication. Keywords: duplication, rectal, MRI, surgery > African Journal of Paediatric Surgery Vol. 3 (2) 2006: pp. 83-85

The tuberculosis of the elbow is an exceptional localization of the mycobacterium tuberculosis. This raises a diagnostic problem which is often tardy. This could therefore, have important consequences. We report 2 cases of chronic arthritis of the elbow, where the diagnosis was built on the anatomic-pathology investigation. In addition to the surgical synovectomy, the antibacillar treatment had stopped the infection. This led to stiffness of the elbow in one of these two patients. Through these observations, we discuss the rarity of this tuberculosis localization which must be treated promptly to avoid heavy consequences. Highland Medical Research Journal Vol. 4(1) 2006: 113-118

The choice of imaging parameters for functional MRI can have an impact on the accuracy of functional localization by affecting the image quality and the degree of blood oxygenation-dependent (BOLD) contrast achieved. By improving sampling efficiency, parallel acquisition techniques such as sensitivity encoding (SENSE) have been used to shorten readout trains in single-shot (SS) echo planar imaging (EPI). This has been applied to susceptibility artifact reduction and improving spatial resolution. SENSE together with single-shot spin-echo (SS-SE) imaging may also reduce off-resonance artifacts. The goal of this work was to investigate the BOLD response of a SENSE-adapted SE-EPI on a three Tesla scanner. Whole-brain fMRI studies of seven healthy right hand-dominant volunteers were carried out in a three Tesla scanner. fMRI was performed using an SS-SE EPI sequence with SENSE. The data was processed using statistical parametric mapping. Both, group and individual subject data analyses were performed. Individual average percentage and maximal percentage signal changes attributed to the BOLD effect in M1 were calculated for all the subjects as a function of echo time. Corresponding activation maps and the sizes of the activated clusters were also calculated. Our results show that susceptibility artifacts were reduced with the use of SENSE; and the acquired BOLD images were free of the typical quadrature artifacts of SS-EPI. Such measures are crucial at high field strengths. SS SE-EPI with SENSE offers further benefits in this regard and is more specific for oxygenation changes in the microvasculature bed. Functional brain activity can be investigated with the help of single-shot spin echo EPI using SENSE at high magnetic fields.