Objectives: To study the prevalence of comorbid conditions at diagnosis and during follow-up in a cohort of patients with early rheumatoid arthritis (RA) followed prospectively over 20 years, and to identify possible early predictive factors for future comorbidities. Methods: A community-based cohort of 183 patients (mean age 52 years, 63% female) with early RA was recruited between 1985 and 1989.

The respiratory pathogen Moraxella catarrhalis has a high affinity for human IgD and is mitogenic for peripheral blood B lymphocytes. Moraxella IgD-binding protein, which is a multifunctional outer membrane protein with adhesive properties, is responsible for the interaction. Previous experiments with the Ig-binding B cell superantigens protein A and protein L from Staphylococcus aureus and Peptos

BACKGROUND: Total plasma homocysteine (tHcy) concentration is elevated in older patients with mental illness, and patients with vascular disease have higher plasma tHcy concentration than patients without vascular disease. Plasma tHcy has been reported to be associated with cognitive functions. The mechanism by which plasma tHcy may influence cognitive functions is not clear. METHOD: We have inves

PURPOSE To compare the effect of therapy with anastrozole versus a combination of fulvestrant and anastrozole in women in first relapse of endocrine-responsive breast cancer. PATIENTS AND METHODS Postmenopausal women, or premenopausal women receiving a gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonist, with estrogen receptor- and/or progesterone receptor-positive disease at first relapse after primary trea

The region of North Africa (NA) represents a striking locality regarding migration with several migration patterns, namely emigration in the form of labour export to Europe and North America and, to a lesser extent, to the Arab Gulf area. The latter has increased enormously in the last decade because of the political instability in most of the NA countries. The aim of the present chapter was to ex

Pump-probe time-resolved x-ray diffraction of allowed and nearly forbidden reflections in InSb is used to follow the propagation of a coherent acoustic pulse generated by ultrafast laser excitation. The surface and bulk components of the strain could be simultaneously measured due to the large x-ray penetration depth. Comparison of the experimental data with dynamical diffraction simulations sugge

Maternal S-cortisol levels increase throughout pregnancy and peak in the third trimester. Even higher levels are seen during the physical stress of delivery. Since analgesia for women in labor has improved, it is possible that maternal stress during labor is reduced. The aim of this study was to compare maternal S-cortisol during vaginal delivery and elective cesarean section.

Rationale: Atrial fibrillation (AF) increases the risk of stroke and it can be reduced by treatment with warfarin. Some patients consider that warfarin is a stressful treatment with undesired effects and the perceived barriers include unwillingness to take it. Knowledge of patients resisting warfarin treatment may be useful for the potential threat to maintaining shared decision-making in the cons

PURPOSE: To evaluate the repeatability of the dGEMRIC (delayed gadolinium enhanced MRI of cartilage) method in osteoarthritis-prone knee joints for three different T1 quantification techniques: two-dimensional inversion recovery (2D-IR), three-dimensional Look-Locker (3D-LL), and three-dimensional variable flip angle (3D-VFA). MATERIALS AND METHODS: Nine subjects were examined twice, with a 2-week

This study analysed how the ISO 9000 framework could be employed in the construction process. Interviews were conducted at twelve companies in Sweden that utilized the quality system standard ISO 9001. Many of the concepts contained in the quality system standard were experienced as being too abstract and too difficult to comprehend. Frequently quality mangement was considered as serving the funct

The validity of atrial fibrillation (AF) diagnoses in national registers for use as endpoints in prospective studies has not been evaluated. We studied the validity of AF diagnoses in Swedish national hospital discharge and cause of death registers and the occurrence of and risk factors for AF in a middle-aged Swedish population using these registers. Our study included the 30,447 individuals (age

Aims: The aim of this study was to evaluate the prevalence of triple antithrombotic therapy (TT) (warfarin, aspirin and clopidogrel) in patients following an acute coronary syndrome (ACS), the bleeding risk compared to double antiplatelet therapy (DAPT) (aspirin and clopidogrel) and evaluate the accuracy of the HAS-BLED risk score in predicting serious bleeding events in TT patients. Methods and r

Lack of or dysfunction in osteoclasts result in osteopetrosis, a group of rare but often severe, genetic disorders affecting skeletal tissue. Increase in bone mass results in skeletal malformation and bone marrow failure that may be fatal. Many of the underlying defects have lately been characterized in humans and in animal models of the disease. In humans, these defects often involve mutations in

BACKGROUND: High doses of aspirin counteract the beneficial effects of angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors. It is not known how low-dose aspirin, with concomitant ACE-inhibitor treatment, affects renal function. AIM: To study renal effects of different doses of aspirin in elderly healthy volunteers who had an activated renin-angiotensin system. METHODS: Sixteen subjects each received tw

BACKGROUND: The amount of myocardium at risk (MaR) during acute coronary occlusion and the duration of occlusion are important determinants of final infarct size. The main goal of early reperfusion therapy is to salvage ischemic myocardium, thereby preserving left ventricular function. The aims of the present study were to test the feasibility of developing polar plot representations of MaR, for p

Many endocarditis pathogens activate human platelets and this has been proposed to contribute to virulence. Here we report for the first time that many clinical isolates of Enterococcus faecalis, a common pathogen in infective endocarditis, aggregate human platelets. 84 isolates from human blood and urine were screened for their ability to aggregate platelets from four different donors. Platelet a