Birth outcomes between 22 and 26 weeks' gestation in national population-based cohorts from Sweden, England and France

Aim: We investigated the timing of survival differences and effects on morbidity for foetuses alive at maternal admission to hospital delivered at 22 to 26 weeks’ gestational age (GA). Methods: Data from the EXPRESS (Sweden, 2004–07), EPICure-2 (England, 2006) and EPIPAGE-2 (France, 2011) cohorts were harmonised. Survival, stratified by GA, was...

Sensitization to Cor a 9 or Cor a 14 has a strong impact on the distribution of thresholds to hazelnut

[No abstract available] Chemicals / CAS immunoglobulin E, 37341-29-0; Allergens; Antigens, Plant; Cor a 14 allergen, hazelnut; Cor a 9 protein, hazelnut; Immunoglobulin E; Plant Proteins.

Performance and working life of cathodic protection systems for concrete structures

Corrosion of reinforcing steel in concrete structures causes concrete cracking and steel diameter reduction, eventually resulting in loss of safety. Conventional repair means heavy, labour intensive and costly work and the required quality level is under economic pressure. Consequently, conventional repair is short lived in many cases. An...

Suitability of PER.C6 cells to generate epidemic and pandemic influenza vaccine strains by reverse genetics

Reverse genetics, the generation of influenza viruses from cDNA, presents a rapid method for creating vaccine strains. The technique necessitates the use of cultured cells. Due to technical and regulatory requirements, the choice of cell lines for production of human influenza vaccines is limited. PER.C6® cells, among the most extensively...

Plasma apolipoprotein CI correlates with increased survival in patients with severe sepsis

Objective: We recently reported that apolipoprotein CI (apoCI) protects against the development of murine bacterial sepsis. We now examined the time course of plasma apoCI levels in survivors and non-survivors of severe sepsis. Design: Prospective study in patients meeting predefined criteria for severe sepsis. Setting: University hospital...

Tissue level, activation and cellular localisation of TGF-beta1 and association with survival in gastric cancer patients

Transforming growth factor-beta1 (TGF-beta1), a tumour suppressing as well as tumour-promoting cytokine, is stored as an extracellular matrix-bound latent complex. We examined TGF-beta1 activation and localisation of TGF-beta1 activity in gastric cancer. Gastric tumours showed increased stromal and epithelial total TGF-beta1 staining by...

Matrix metalloproteinase-2 is a consistent prognostic factor in gastric cancer

In a pioneer study, we showed 10 years ago that enhanced tissue levels of the matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) MMP-2 and MMP-9 in gastric cancers, as determined by zymography, were related with worse overall survival of the patients. To corroborate these observations, we now assessed MMP-2 and MMP-9 with new techniques in an expanded group of...

Consumption of vegetables and fruits and risk of ovarian carcinoma: Results from the Netherlands Cohort Study on Diet and Cancer

BACKGROUND. To the authors' knowledge, only a few prospective studies to date have investigated the correlation between vegetable and fruit consumption and the risk of ovarian carcinoma and their results have been inconclusive. METHODS. Vegetable and fruit intake was assessed in relation to ovarian carcinoma, among 62,573 postmenopausal women...

Changes in perinatal care and survival in very preterm and extremely preterm infants in the Netherlands between 1983 and 1995

Objective: To evaluate changes in obstetrical and neonatal care for very preterm and extremely preterm infants between 1983 and 1995 in The Netherlands and to evaluate the effect of those changes. Study design: Data on all very preterm or VLBW infants from the linked national obstetrical and neonatal databases of 1995 (N=2066) were compared to...

Do aberrant crypt foci have predictive value for the occurrence of colorectal tumours? Potential of gene expression profiling in tumours

The effects of different dietary compounds on the formation of aberrant crypt foci (ACF) and colorectal tumours and on the expression of a selection of genes were studied in rats. Azoxymethane-treated male F344 rats were fed either a control diet or a diet containing 10% wheat bran (WB), 0.2% curcumin (CUR), 4% rutin (RUT) or 0.04% benzyl...

Withdrawal from labour force due to work disability in patients with ankylosing spondylitis

Objective - To investigate withdrawal from the labour force because of inability to work owing to ankylosing spondylitis (AS) and to determine the characteristics of patients with no job because of work disability attributable to AS. Methods - A postal questionnaire was sent to 709 patients with AS aged 16-60 years followed up by a...

Additional risk factors influence excess mortality in heterozygous familial hypercholesterolaemia

Life expectancy of patients with familial hypercholesterolaemia is decreased. Some untreated patients reach a normal life span and, therefore, additional risk factors and the type of mutation in the low-density lipoprotein (LDL) receptor gene are likely to influence the clinical outcome. We determined all cause mortality in kindreds with the...

Survival analysis under cross-sectional sampling: Length bias and multiplicative censoring

Consider a parametric, nonparametric or semiparametric model for survival times. Interest is in estimation of Euclidean and Banach parameters for these models. However, not the survival times themselves will be observed, since this might be quite time consuming. Instead, cross-sectional sampling is applied: at some point in time one identifies a...

Angiotensin I-converting enzyme and plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 gene variants: Risk of mortality and fatal cardiovascular disease in an elderly population-based cohort

OBJECTIVES: We studied the contribution of putative risk genotypes at the angiotensin I-converting enzyme inhibitor (ACE D/D) and plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 (PAI-1 4G/4G) loci to all-cause and cardiovascular mortality in a population-based cohort. BACKGROUND: The ACE D/D and PAI-1 4G/4G genotypes have been consistently associated with...

von Willebrand factor, C-reactive protein, and 5-year mortality in diabetic and nondiabetic subjects: The Hoorn study

Increased levels of von Willebrand factor (vWf) and C-reactive protein (CRP) predict cardiovascular mortality in selected populations. It is uncertain whether vWf and CRP predict mortality in a general population and whether vWf and CRP predict mortality through similar pathways. This study investigated the association of vWf and CRP with...

Multiple imputation of missing blood pressure covariates in survival analysis

This paper studies a non-response problem in survival analysis where the occurrence of missing data in the risk factor is related to mortality. In a study to determine the influence of blood pressure on survival in the very old (85+ years), blood pressure measurements are missing in about 12.5 per cent of the sample. The available data suggest...

Estimation of differences and ratios of average age at first occurrence

Average age at first occurrence of a disease is easier to interpret than the incidence rate, which can be difficult to interpret for a common disease. Basic methods for estimating univariate differences and ratios for average age at first occurrence are outlined and illustrated with a real-life example.