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Background: Both single factors and composite measures have been suggested to predict mortality in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and there is a need to analyze the relative importance of each variable. Objective: To explore the predictors of mortality for patients with COPD in relation to respiratory, cardiac, and malignant causes, as well as all causes of death. Metho

Importance: The concept of embolic stroke of undetermined source (ESUS) unifies a subgroup of cryptogenic strokes based on neuroimaging, a defined minimum set of diagnostic tests, and exclusion of certain causes. Despite an annual stroke recurrence rate of 5%, little is known about the etiology underlying recurrent stroke after ESUS. Objective: To identify the stroke subtype of recurrent ischemic

Background: Bococizumab is a humanized monoclonal antibody that inhibits proprotein convertase subtilisin-kexin type 9 (PCSK9) and reduces levels of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol. We sought to evaluate the efficacy of bococizumab in patients at high cardiovascular risk. Methods: In two parallel, multinational trials with different entry criteria for LDL cholesterol levels, we randomly

Background Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS) is a variant of cardiovascular autonomic disorder occurring predominantly in young women. POTS is characterized by an excessive heart rate increase when assuming upright posture accompanied by symptoms of orthostatic intolerance. The pathophysiology of POTS has not been fully established and is believed to be multifactorial. Purpose We a

Background: 27-Hydroxycholesterol (27HC) stimulates estrogen receptor-positive (ER+) breast cancer (BC) progression. Inhibiting the sterol 27-hydroxylase (CYP27A1) abrogates these growth-promoting effects of 27HC in mice. However, the significance of CYP27A1 expression on BC biology and prognosis is unclear. Methods: Intratumoral CYP27A1 expression in invasive BC was measured by immunohistochemist

Background: Acute coronary syndromes most commonly arise from thrombosis of lipid-rich coronary atheromas that have large plaque burden despite angiographically appearing mild. Objectives: This study sought to examine the outcomes of percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) of non–flow-limiting vulnerable plaques. Methods: Three-vessel imaging was performed with a combination intravascular ultraso

Alzheimer's disease researchers have been intrigued by the selective regional vulnerability of the brain to amyloid-β plaques and tau neurofibrillary tangles. Post-mortem studies indicate that in ageing and Alzheimer's disease tau tangles deposit early in the transentorhinal cortex, a region located in the anterior-temporal lobe that is critical for object memory. In contrast, amyloid-β pathology

In order to identify the signal epitopes of the neuropeptide Y (NPY) molecule, the conformation of the NPY molecule was pertubated by a systematic double D-amino acid replacement of neighbouring residues. These NPY-analogs were examined for receptor affinity and on biological activity. The rat cerebral cortex and hippocampus were used for binding characteristics on Y1 and Y2 binding sites, respect

Genetic factors play an important role in the pathogenesis of osteoporosis but the genes that determine susceptibility to poor bone health are defined incompletely. Previous work has shown that a polymorphism that affects an Spl binding site in the COLIA1 gene is associated with reduced bone mineral density (BMD) and an increased risk of osteoporotic fracture in several populations. Data from cros

Background: Colorectal cancer screening programmes and uptake vary substantially across Europe. We aimed to compare changes over time in colorectal cancer incidence, mortality, and stage distribution in relation to colorectal cancer screening implementation in European countries. Methods: Data from nearly 3·1 million patients with colorectal cancer diagnosed from 2000 onwards (up to 2016 for most

This paper draws attention to the potential benefits of using photographs in combination with interviews, that is to say photo elicitation. As defined by Harper (2002), photo elicitation is “based on the simple idea of inserting a photograph into a research interview” (p. 13). The photographs can be taken by the researcher or the participant to evoke comments. If participants are asked to produce

This thesis concerns localisation, shape reconstruction and pose estimation from monocular images. While multiple cameras allows for triangulation to capture depth in scenes, monocular settings require some of relative features, reasonable real-world assumptions, regularisation, Machine Learning (ML) or a combination of these. The accompanying articles to this compilation thesis treats several top

Importance Substantial improvements in childhood cancer survival have created a critical need to address serious long-term health complications, such as valvular heart disease (VHD). Objective To identify treatment-related risk factors for VHD in a large European cohort of long-term childhood cancer survivors. Design, Setting, and Participants This nested case-control study used data from the PanC

BACKGROUND: Postmortem MRI has opened-up avenues to study brain structure at ultra high-resolution revealing details not possible to observe with in vivo MRI. Here, we present a novel package (purple-mri) which performs tissue segmentation, anatomical parcellation and spatial normalization of postmortem MRI. Additionally, we provide a framework to perform point-wise surface-based group-level studi

Background: Myocardium at risk (MaR) can be evaluated by cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) imaging using contrast-enhanced steady state free precession (CE-SSFP) in patients after ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI). However, CE-SSFP utilizes gadolinium contrast, which is contraindicated in patients with severe renal insufficiency. Native T1-mapping is a non-contrast CMR method which

Background: SARS-CoV-2 remains globally circulating, yet post-pandemic comprehensive molecular, serological, and population-level immunity data from low-resource settings such as Ethiopia are limited. This study employed genomic surveillance with seroepidemiological assessment to characterize the epidemiology of SARS-CoV-2 among individuals presenting with influenza-like illness (ILI) and severe a

33Background: PSMA PET has been shown to detect more metastasis and alter management at biochemical recurrence (BCR), but it remains to be determined that it changes oncologic outcome. We assessed the quantitative parameters on 18F-DCFPyL PET at BCR and evaluated their association with tumor volume, metastatic locations with the subsequent biochemical progression free survival (bPFS). Methods: Thi

Background: Mammography screening programmes have been widely implemented across European countries over the past 40 years with the main aim to detect breast cancer earlier and thereby reduce breast cancer mortality. This study aimed to analyse and compare changes over time in breast cancer incidence, by stage at diagnosis, and breast cancer mortality across countries in relation to the timing of

Background: Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has traditionally been preferred over computed tomography (CT) for segmentation of intracranial structures due to its superior low contrast resolution. However, a reliable CT-based segmentation could improve patient management when MRI is not practical. Despite advancements in CT imaging, such as enhanced tissue differentiation using virtual monoenerget