Israel Medical Association Journal

Background: Benign prostate hyperplasia (BPH) is a common age-dependent urological condition that can disrupt quality of life if the patient's treatment choice is inappropriate. 

Objectives: To examine whether patients’ demography and personality affect their decision regarding the type of treatment: namely, conservative or surgical. 

Methods: A total of 105 BPH patients treated during the period 2005–2008 were retrospectively categorized into three groups according to treatment received: (i) medication only (n=056), (ii) combined treatment (the initial medication treatment was switched to surgical treatment) (n=32), and (iii) surgery only (n=17). A prerequisite for inclusion in the study was use of BPH medication for at least half a year before the study (groups 1 and 2). These groups completed the International Prostate Symptom Score (IPSS) questionnaire at the start of BPH medical treatment (IPSS 1) and at the start of the trial (IPSS 2), and the staff calculated the difference (IPSS 1-IPSS 2 = Delta IPSS = DIPSS).  All three groups provided demographic data (age, country of origin, education) and completed tri-dimensional personality questionnaires (TPQ) to measure three independent "temperament" personality dimensions to evaluate how different individuals feel or behave: novel seeking (NS), harm avoidance (HA), and reward dependence (RD). Data were analyzed using chi-square, t-test, one-way ANOVA and logistic regression.

Results: Demographic variables and the RD dimension differed according to choice of BPH treatment. 

Conclusions: Our study suggests that symptomatic BPH treatment is influenced less by the patient's personality and more by his life circumstances. Israeli-born patients were more conservative, Russian-born patients were ambivalent, and other foreign-born patients predominantly preferred surgical treatment. We assume that personality has a more decisive effect on patients with malignant disease and they accept the medical advice more easily. 

 

Objectives: To investigate the occurrence and to classify sport-related eye trauma in northern Israel.

Methods: We analyzed the records of the ophthalmology emergency department for the years 2007–2011 and classified the admissions according to type, severity of injury and demographic data.

Results: In 2% of the patients the injuries occurred during a sport activity. Most of the injuries occurred during soccer, basketball or school sport activity (74%). The majority of patients were young males.

Conclusions: Most sports-related eye injuries can be prevented with adequate eye protection.

Background: Corneal haze is a significant complication of photorefractive keratectomy (PRK) and laser-assisted sub-epithelial keratectomy (LASEK).

Objectives: To evaluate the effect of ascorbic acid supplementation in addition to perioperative topical mitomycin-C for the prevention of haze after LASEK.

Methods: We performed a retrospective, non-randomized case series study of two groups of 48 consecutive patients (96 myopic eyes) who had LASEK surgery. The treatment group was given ascorbic acid (vitamin C) orally 500 mg twice daily from 1 week before to 2 weeks after surgery. The control group was not offered any additional treatment. Ascorbate supplementation was the only difference in the postoperative treatment protocol between the treatment and control groups. Haze was assessed on a scale from 0 to 4 at the 1 year visit.

Results: Overall, 33.3% and 37.5% of the patients in the treatment and control groups respectively developed corneal haze. The trend of increased haze severity in the control group did not reach statistical significance.

Conclusions: Our results showed that systemic ascorbate supplementation does not have an additional effect on the prevention of haze after LASEK compared to the effect of topical mitomycin-C alone.