Prevalence and Natural History

The National Survey on Drug Use and Health found that 1.6% of persons over age 12 years reported using heroin at some time in their lives (Substance 

Opioid dependence rarely results ftom the prescribing of opioids temporarily for treatment of acute pain or pain of terminal illness. Even use in chronic 

Although many who experiment with opioids experience euphoria or symptom rehef with the first use, some experimenters use these drugs only a few times and then avoid further use because of an awareness of the risks or because of unpleasant side effects such as nausea or vomiting. Even for those 

Fot those who do seek tteatment, the avetage time from dependence to fitst tteatment is apptoximately 2-3 yeats. Initial tteatment typically involves detoxification, with little ot no aftetcate. Without supetvision, as many as two-thitds of these individuals will telapse, most within the fitst few months aftet detoxification. 

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Hampel C, Wienhold D, Benken N et al. (1997) Prevalence and natural history of female incontinence. Eur Urol 32(Suppl 2) 3-12... 

Englesbe MJ, Wu AH, Clowes AW, Zierler RE (2003) The prevalence and natural history of aortic aneurysms in heart and abdominal organ transplant patients. JVasc 8urg 37 27-31... 

Ellis MR, Franks PJ, Cuming R, Powell JT, Greenhalgh RM. Prevalence, progression and natural history of asymptomatic carotid stenosis is there a place for carotid endarterectomy Eur J Vase Surg 1992 6 172-177. 

Sarin, S.K., Lahoti, D., Saxena, S.P., Murthy, N.S., Makwana, U.K. Prevalence, classification and natural history of gastric varices a longterm follow-up study in 568 portal hypertension patients. Hepatology 1992 16 1343-1349... 

While the prevalence of DSP continues to rise as patients with HIV infection live longer, the incidence of HIV-associated neuropathy may be on the decline. Schifitto et al in the Northeast AIDS Dementia (NEAD) Consortium estimated the 1-year incidence of symptomatic neuropathy in a cohort of patients on HAART at 21% (Schifitto et al. 2005), compared to an incidence of 36% in a prior cohort from the pre-HAART era (Schifitto et al. 2002). This suggests that HAART may change the natural history of HIV-associated DSP (Comblath and Hoke 2006). 

Higgins, E. (1994). A review of unrecognized mental illness in primary care Prevalence, natural history, and efforts to change the course. Archives of Family Medicine, 3, 899-907. 

Abbott MH, et al. Psychiatric manifestations of homocystinuria due to cystathionine beta-synthase deficiency prevalence, natural history, and relationship to neurologic impairment and vitamin B6-responsiveness. Am J Med Genet. 1987 26(4) 959-69. 

Brown RD, Wiebers DO, Forbes G et al. (1988) The natural history of unruptured intracranial arteriovenous malformations. J Neurosurg 68 352-357 Brown RD, Wiebers DO, Forbes GS (1990) Unruptured intracranial aneurysms and arteriovenous malformations and relationship of lesions. J Neurosurg 73 859-863 Brown RD Jr, Wiebers DO, Torner JC, O Fallon WM (1996a) Incidence and prevalence of intracranial vascular malformations in Olmsted County, Minnesota, 1965 to 1992. Neurology 46 949-952... 

Atopic diathesis is indubitably a common human trait, but several factors make it difficult to obtain an absolutely accurate measurement of its true frequency (1) differences in definition of the state and of individual diseases that accompany it (2) significant influences of race, sex, and environmental factors in the production of clinical disease (3) the natural history of the individual conditions, with remissions and exacerbations, means that prevalence figures at any given time underestimate the number of patients actually at risk and (4) symptoms occurring in early life are often not recognized as atopic. However, one can estimate that at least one in five Western individuals will have experienced at least one atopic disorder by the age of twenty. The frequency of positive skin tests, with or without symptoms, indicates that about a third of the population carry the atopic predisposition (Davis, 1976 Godfrey and Griffiths, 1976). 

Table 1. Natural history of atrophic corpus gastritis prevalence and annual increment (cohorts without gastric disease)...

The discovery in 1954 that fluorination of the glucocorticoid hormone cortisol could bring about remarkable changes in the biological properties of the hormone was entirely unexpected and violated the then prevalent belief that synthetic variants could not surpass a naturally occurring hormone in its biological activity. Because of the impact that fluorination of steroids has had on subsequent developments in this area the history of the discovery of fluorocortisol will be briefly recounted. 

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