Limitations of the targeted surveillance program were noted and include: (1) a lost contact rate of 32.4%; (2) delays in first surveillance assessment; (3) a large number of children who required on-going

monitoring; and (4) extensive MS-275 inhibitor diagnostic assessments were completed on children with normal hearing. Examination of the lost contact rate revealed indigenous children were more likely to be documented as lost contact. In addition, children with one risk factor only were significantly more likely to not attend a surveillance appointment.

Conclusions: Positive cases of postnatal hearing loss were detected through the targeted surveillance program. However, the limitations of the program question the usefulness of this Cell Cycle inhibitor service delivery model. For targeted surveillance to continue, time frames for assessment, assessments performed, and discharge criteria

need to be revisited. The contribution of individual and combined risk factors in detecting postnatal hearing loss should also be examined in more detail. Crown Copyright (C) 2012 Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.”
“The global impetus to identify curative therapies has been fuelled by the unmet needs of patients in the context of a growing heart failure pandemic. To date, regeneration trials in patients with cardiovascular disease have used stem-cell-based therapy in the period immediately after myocardial injury, in an attempt to halt progression towards ischaemic cardiomyopathy, or in the setting of congestive heart failure, to target the disease process

and prevent organ decompensation. Worldwide, several thousand patients have now been treated using autologous cell-based therapy; the safety and feasibility of this approach has been established, pitfalls have GSK2118436 been identified, and optimization procedures envisioned. Furthermore, the initiation of phase III trials to further validate the therapeutic value of cell-based regenerative medicine and address the barriers to successful clinical implementation has led to resurgence in the enthusiasm for such treatments among patients and health-care providers. In particular, poor definition of cell types used, diversity in cell-handling procedures, and functional variability intrinsic to autologously-derived cells have been identified as the main factors limiting adoption of cell-based therapies. In this Review, we summarize the experience obtained from trials of ‘first-generation’ cell-based therapy, and emphasize the advances in the purification and lineage specification of stem cells that have enabled the development of ‘next-generation’ stem-cell-based therapies targeting cardiovascular disease.