To determine the facture structure of the HIV Antibody Testing Attitude Scale (HTAS) in an African population. Method: 760 first-year African university students from Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda and Zimbabwe were surveyed using the HIV Antibody Testing Attitude Scale. Factor structure was determined by using the principal component analysis with varimax rotation. Results: Five components accounting for 51% of the total variance were identified. The first factor (eigenvalue: 5.11) accounted for 23.2% of the variance in the responses and contained items concerned with perceptions on trust and support about HIV antibody testing, the second (eigenvalue: 2.19) 10% of the variance included items that were largely related to general concerns about HIV antibody testing, the third (eigenvalue: 1.51) 6.9% of the variance and included items related to fears about HIV antibody testing, the fourth (eigenvalue: 1.11) 5% of the variance contained items about concerns about the confidentiality of HIV antibody testing, and the fifth factor (eigenvalue: 1.01) accounted for 4.6% of the variance and reflected items about friends’ concerns about HIV antibody testing. Conclusion: This study identified “friends’ concerns”, “confidentiality” and “general or public concerns” about HIV antibody testing like among US students (Boshamer & Bruce, 1999) but two major other factors emerged as ‘trust and support’ and ‘fears’ about HIV antibody testing. Issues around support and fears are relevant facilitators or barriers that are important for youth among African populations.

Although trace elements are found a little amount in body they have obvious structural functional importance and have an important role on a variety of biological processes. Since the abnormal metabolism of metal ions plays an important role in health and disease conditions, studies about them have been attracting great interest. The aim of our study was to evaluate magnesium, zinc and copper contents in hair and serum concentrations in patients with epilepsy. Method: Twenty-seven patients (12 male, 15 female; mean age 42,73 ± 16,23 years) with epilepsy and 29 age-matched healthy subjects (12 male, 17 female; mean age 49,76 ± 13,11 years) were enrolled in this study. We assessed Mg, Zn and Cu contents in hair and their serum levels in all subjects with an atomic absorption spectrophotometer. Results were calculated in ppm for hair and in µg/ml for serum. For comparison of means, Student’s t test was used. Results: The mean values of trace element concentrations of hair in patients were significantly reduced compared with the controls (mean magnesium concentration in patients, 111,33 ± 37,33 vs. control, 133.57 ± 22.91 [p<0.01], mean zinc concentration in patients, 121,40 ± 45,40 vs. control, 176.96 ± 43.10 [p<0.001], mean copper concentration in patients, 42,74 ± 20,36 vs. control, 60.22 ± 22.32 [p<0.05]). Although the serum levels of magnesium and zinc are lower in patients with epilepsy than the levels in controls, these differences were not found to be significant (mean magnesium level in patients, 19,4 ± 2,7 vs. control, 23,3 ± 12,3 [p>0.05], mean zinc level in patients, 1,54 ± 0,79 vs. control, 1,86 ± 0,83 [p>0.05]). Furthermore, lower magnesium levels in patients with epilepsy were closely related to pharmacoresistant epilepsy. Conclusion: These data indicate that concentrations of Mg, Zn and Cu are altered trace element concentrations become change in patients with epilepsy during interictal periods and these changes may be important, especially low magnesium levels, in anticonvulsant drugs designed for the clinical problem of pharmacoresistant epilepsy.

The objective in the study was to detect the intermediate trophoblastic cells and to differentiate the abortion from ectopic pregnancy by using immunohistochemical methods. Method: Four groups of patients were included in the study, and the archival materials of the patients were used for immunohistochemistry. Group 1 comprised of 10 patients who had miscarriages between the 5th and 12th weeks of gestation. There were 5 non pregnant patients in group 2. In group 3, there were 64 patients who had ectopic pregnancy between the 5th and 12th weeks of gestation. Group 4 comprised of 50 patients who were clinically suspected of miscarriage without chorionic villi, and cyto and syncytiotrophoblast. Results: All trophoblastic cells of chorionic villi showed strong positivity for sitokeratin in group 1 though this was not the condition in group 2 and 3. In group 4, however, 35 of 50 patients had intermediate trophoblast cells as detected by cytokeratin staining. Conclusion: The use of these hormone markers in endometrial specimens increases precision in the diagnosis of intrauterine versus ectopic pregnancy.