More reports of relapse curves of self-quitters are needed. Smoking cessation interventions should focus on the first week of abstinence. Interventions that produce abstinence rates of 5-10% may be effective. Cessation studies should report relapse curves.

Most clinical trials use 6 mo or 1 yr follow-ups as proxies for life-time smoking cessation. Retrospective studies have estimated 2-15% of smokers relapse each year after the first 1 year of abstinence, but these have methodological problems such as memory bias. We searched for prospective studies of adult quitters that reported the number of participants abstinent at 1 yr followup and who remained abstinent at ≥ 2 year follow-ups. We included studies that reported the percent who remained lapse-free, did not continue treatment after 1 yr, and had ≤ 10% lost to follow-up. We did not locate any population-based studies but did locate eight randomized, controlled trials, all testing nicotine medications. After deleting one trial with outlier results, a meta-analysis estimated the annual incidence of relapse after 1 yr to be 10%; however, the small sample sizes resulted in a wide 95% confidence interval (5-17%) suggesting this estimate is not very accurate. We conclude a non-significant amount of relapse occurs after 1 yr. Better quantification of this relapse rate is important to improve estimates of lifelong abstinence and reductions in morbidity and mortality from smoking cessation.

Increased age, male sex, and increased surgical delay all increase the frequency and severity of injuries of the meniscus and/or articular cartilage after an anterior cruciate ligament tear.

Strength deficits present within months after ACL injury and persist through 4 years after ACLR in participants with significantly narrowed JSW-D, compared with ACLR participants with normal JSW-D and controls. This study revealed a significant relationship between quadriceps strength loss that occurred soon after injury and JSW narrowing.

We developed Therapeutic Interactive Voice Response (TIVR) as an automated, telephone-based tool for maintenance enhancement following group cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) for chronic pain. TIVR has four components: a daily self-monitoring questionnaire, a didactic review of coping skills, pre-recorded behavioral rehearsals of coping skills, and monthly personalized feedback messages from the CBT therapist based on a review of the patient's daily reports. The first three components are pre-recorded and all four can be accessed remotely by patients via touch-tone telephone on demand. Following 11 weeks of group CBT, 51 subjects with chronic musculoskeletal pain were randomized to one of two study groups. Twenty-six subjects participated in 4 months of TIVR, while a control group of 25 subjects received standard care only. The TIVR group showed maximum improvement over baseline at the 8-month follow-up for seven of the eight outcome measures; improvement was found to be significant for all outcomes (p