AVM PREVALENCE IN LOTHIAN, UK

Brain arteriovenous malformation (AVM) minimum prevalence in the Lothian Health Board of Scotland was 15 per 100 000 adults in 1998. As AVMs account for about one third of primary intracerebral haemorrhage in young adults this may contribute to long term disability. Patients were sought retrospectively from multiple overlapping sources including family practitioners, physicians, and surgeons. Diagnoses were confirmed using case notes, brain imaging, and pathology reports. Capture-recapture analysis gave a prevalence of 18 per 100 000 adults, men were significantly younger than women on the prevalence date. Of those meeting inclusion criteria 27% had radiological evidence of AVM therapeutic obliteration and 10% had coexisting aneurysms. AVM prevalence has implications on the provision of healthcare services. (

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S Kochhar

BETTER KNOWLEDGE TO FIGHT BLINDNESS

An improvement in public health awareness may help prevent blindness due to common eye ailments. Researchers studied causes of adult visual loss and public awareness of common ocular diseases through the use of eye examinations and interviews in a randomly selected group of people aged 40 and over. They found that …