Background: Temstem is a smartphone app developed with and for clinical voice hearing individuals with the aim to reduce their voice hearing distress and improve social functioning. Methods: A randomized controlled trial with adult outpatients suffering from distressing and frequent auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH) was conducted. Participants were randomized to unguided ‘Temstem+AVH monitoring’ or unguided ‘AVH monitoring only’ (control condition). Assessments were performed at baseline, post-intervention (week 5–6), and follow-up (week 9–10). Primary outcomes were voice hearing distress and social functioning, as measured with Experience Sampling Method (ESM), consisting of multiple daily questionnaires during six days. In addition, voices and mood were self-monitored with help of a daily reflective questionnaire. Analyses were linear regression models (intention-to-treat). Results: 44 Participants were allocated to Temstem and 45 to the control condition. No significant differences between the groups were found on both primary outcomes. Conclusion: Our results do not support the effectiveness of stand-alone use of Temstem versus symptom monitoring on voice hearing distress or social functioning in voice hearing individuals. In order to potentially improve effectiveness of an mHealth tool in a population of people with frequent and distressing voices, we recommend to involve persons with lived experience in all stages of development and research; to thoroughly test the (technological) usability before performing an RCT; to test whether guidance of a therapist is needed to optimize effectiveness; and to provide prompts to remind the user to actually use the tool.@en

Pathologic conditions associated with bone formation can serve as models to identify bone-promoting mediators. The inflammatory response to bacterial infections generally leads to osteolysis and impaired bone healing, but paradoxically, it can also have pro-osteogenic effects. As a potential model to investigate pro-osteogenic stimuli, this study characterizes the bone formation in an established rabbit tibia model of periprosthetic infection. Our hypothesis was that the infection with Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) correlates with bone formation as a response to local inflammation. Fluorochromes showed excessive subperiosteal bone formation in infected tibiae, starting the first week and continuing throughout the study period. Despite the observed cortical lysis on micro-CT after 28 days, infection resulted in a twofold higher bone volume in the proximal tibiae compared to uninfected controls. The ipsilateral fibulae, nor the contralateral fibulae or tibiae were affected by infection. Next, we sought to confine the cause of stimulated bone formation to the isolated S. aureus cell wall. In absence of virulent bacterial infection, the S. aureus cell wall extract induced bone in a more favorable way without cortical lysis. This suggests that the sterile inflammatory reaction to bacterial antigens may be harnessed for bone regenerative purposes. Future investigations in this rabbit tibia model can lead to further identification of effective stimuli for clinical application.@en

Pathologic conditions associated with bone formation can serve as models to identify bone-promoting mediators. The inflammatory response to bacterial infections generally leads to osteolysis and impaired bone healing, but paradoxically, it can also have pro-osteogenic effects. As a potential model to investigate pro-osteogenic stimuli, this study characterizes the bone formation in an established rabbit tibia model of periprosthetic infection. Our hypothesis was that the infection with Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) correlates with bone formation as a response to local inflammation. Fluorochromes showed excessive subperiosteal bone formation in infected tibiae, starting the first week and continuing throughout the study period. Despite the observed cortical lysis on micro-CT after 28 days, infection resulted in a twofold higher bone volume in the proximal tibiae compared to uninfected controls. The ipsilateral fibulae, nor the contralateral fibulae or tibiae were affected by infection. Next, we sought to confine the cause of stimulated bone formation to the isolated S. aureus cell wall. In absence of virulent bacterial infection, the S. aureus cell wall extract induced bone in a more favorable way without cortical lysis. This suggests that the sterile inflammatory reaction to bacterial antigens may be harnessed for bone regenerative purposes. Future investigations in this rabbit tibia model can lead to further identification of effective stimuli for clinical application.@en