<i>Background</i> - There is no standardised method to investigate death as a patient safety indicator and we need valid and reliable measurements to use adverse events contributing to death as a quality measure.<p> <p><i>Objective</i> - To investigate the contribution of severe adverse events to death in hospitalised patients and clarify methodological differences using the Global Trigger Tool ...

<i>Background</i> - Little data exist to describe the use and medical consequences of drone strikes on civilian populations in war and conflict zones. Gaza is a landstrip within the Palestinian territories and the home of 2 million people. The median age in Gaza is 17·2 years and almost half of the population is below the age of 14 years. We studied the prevalence and severity of extremity amputation ...

Sports-specialized newspapers are one of the print media with the highest number of readers in Spain. However, little is known about the health coverage in this type of print press. The aim of the study was to analyze any health-related material in sports newspaper coverage and describe the main characteristics. This is an observational and cross-sectional study, performed in relation to the three ...

The goal of the Norwegian Ministry of Health and Care Services is to offer an equal health-care service with the same outcomes wherever people are living within the country. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether this was true for patients diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer (mPC) and living in Nordland County, a region with a challenging geography and climate and having, several small ...

Stroke is associated with a short-term increased risk of subsequent venous thromboembolism (VTE). It is unclear to what extent this association is mediated by strokerelated complications that are potential triggers for VTE, such as immobilization and infection. We aimed to investigate the role of acute stroke as a trigger for incident VTE while taking other concomitant VTE triggers into account. ...

Several epidemiological studies have pointed at serum uric acid (SUA) as an independent risk factor for mortality, diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular and kidney disease; however, no clear pathogenic pathway is established. Uric acid (UA) crystals show pro-inflammatory properties and can thus create or contribute to the state of chronic low-grade inflammation, a widely accepted pathogenic mechanism ...

<b>Background</b><br> Depression is associated with immunological responses as reflected by altered levels of circulating cytokines. Alcohol use and trauma may modulate immune activity, and few studies have investigated these factors in depressed patients. We aimed to explore the association between circulating peripheral cytokine levels and degree of depressive symptoms, taking trauma and alcohol ...

<i>Background - </i>Chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection can progress to cirrhosis and end-stage liver disease in a substantial proportion of patients. The infection is frequently asymptomatic, leaving many infected individuals unaware of the diagnosis until complications occur. This advocates the screening of healthy individuals. The aim of this study was to estimate the prevalence of HCV ...

<i>Objectives</i>: Resistance-associated substitutions (RASs) may impair treatment response to direct-acting antivirals (DAA) in hepatitis C virus (HCV) treatment. We investigated the effects of baseline NS3-RASs (Q80K and R155K) and clinically relevant NS5A-RASs in patients with HCV genotype (GT) 1a infection on treatment outcome, with or without resistance-based DAA-treatment. This multi-center ...

<i>Purpose</i>: Accurate assessment of cardiac function is important during pregnancy. Echocardiography and impedance cardiography (ICG) are commonly used noninvasive methods to measure stroke volume (SV) and cardiac output (CO). The diference in stroke volume (ΔSV) or cardiac output (ΔCO) measured at baseline and after passive leg raising (PLR) is a measure of preload reserve that predicts volume ...