Lumbar disc herniation (LDH) is uncommon in youth and few cases are treated surgically. Very few outcome studies exist for LDH surgery in this age group. Our aim was to explore differences in gender in pre-operative level of disability and outcome of surgery for LDH in patients aged ≤ 20 years using prospectively collected data. From the national Swedish SweSpine register we identified 180 patient

Pathogens that are maintained by wild birds occasionally jump to human hosts, causing considerable loss of life and disruption to global commerce. Preliminary evidence suggests that climate change and human movements and commerce may have played a role in recent range expansions of avian pathogens. Since the magnitude of climate change in the coming decades is predicted to exceed climatic changes

The objective of this article was to investigate the existence of horizontal inequality in access to care for six categories of elective surgery in a publicly funded system, when care is rationed through waiting lists. Administrative waiting time data on all elective surgeries (n = 4,634) performed in Östergötland, Sweden, in 2007 were linked to national registers containing variables on socioecon

Ensembles of (J,K)-regular low-density parity-check convolutional (LDPCC) codes are known to be asymptotically good, in the sense that the minimum free distance grows linearly with the constraint length. In this paper, we use a protograph-based analysis of terminated LDPCC codes to obtain an upper bound on the free distance growth rate of ensembles of periodically time-varying LDPCC codes. This bo

Developing a functional blood substitute as an alternative to donated blood for clinical use is believed to relieve present and future blood shortages, and to reduce the risks of infection and blood type mismatching. Hemoglobin vesicle (HbV) encapsulates a purified and concentrated human-derived Hb solution in a phospholipid vesicle (liposome). The in vivo safety and efficacy of HbV as a transfusi

EndoS from Streptococcus pyogenes is an immunomodulating enzyme that specifically hydrolyzes glycans from human IgG and thereby affects antibody effector functions. Autoimmune hemolytic anemia is caused by antibody mediated red blood cell (RBC) destruction and often resists treatment with corticosteroids that also cause frequent adverse effects. We show here that anti-RhD (anti-D) and rabbit anti-

Abstract in Undetermined In this study the distinction between complicated and complex is used to shed some light on compliance with best-practice guidelines. Data was gathered related to obstetric practice in labor wards and operating theatres at two Scandinavian hospitals, one of them being a university hospital, and in a training facility. The complexity of obstetrical intervention is analyzed

Obese subjects have increased number of enlarged fat cells which are reduced in size but not number in post-obesity. We performed DNA methylation profiling in fat cells with the aim of identifying differentially methylated DNA sites (DMS) linked to adipose hyperplasia (many small fat cells) in post-obesity.

Experience can affect human gray matter volume. The behavioral correlates of individual differences in such brain changes are not well understood. In a group of Swedish individuals studying Italian as a foreign language, we investigated associations among time spent studying, acquired vocabulary, baseline performance on memory tasks, and gray matter changes. As a way of studying episodic memory tr

Drug development and clinical decision making for patients with metastatic prostate cancer (PC) have been hindered by a lack of quantitative methods of assessing changes in bony disease burden that are associated with overall survival (OS). Bone scan index (BSI), a quantitative imaging biomarker of bone tumor burden, is prognostic in men with metastatic PC. We evaluated an automated method for BSI

Compound heterozygosity for a trinucleotide repeat expansion and a point mutation in the FXN gene is a rare cause of Friedreich ataxia (FRDA).

Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) may affect male reproductive function. Many dioxin-like POPs exert their effects by activation of the aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AHR) signalling pathway. We analysed whether gene-environment interactions between polymorphisms in AHR (R554K) and AHR repressor (AHRR P185A) and serum levels of markers of POP exposure 1,1-bis-(4-chlorophenyl)-2,2-dichloroethene (p,

The mushroom Coprinopsis cinerea is a classic experimental model for multicellular development in fungi because it grows on defined media, completes its life cycle in 2 weeks, produces some 10(8) synchronized meiocytes, and can be manipulated at all stages in development by mutation and transformation. The 37-megabase genome of C. cinerea was sequenced and assembled into 13 chromosomes. Meiotic re

The growth rate of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations since industrialization is characterized by large interannual variability, mostly resulting from variability in CO2 uptake by terrestrial ecosystems (typically termed carbon sink). However, the contributions of regional ecosystems to that variability are not well known. Using an ensemble of ecosystem and land-surface models and an

BACKGROUND: A novel way to evaluate muscle strength and functioning in the lower limbs is to measure how high a person could step up on a platform, the so called Maximal Step-up Test (MST). Studies of healthy persons and overweight women have shown that the maximal step-up height (MSH) is associated with both muscle strength and physical function, but no study has assessed persons after stroke. OB

Background: It is known that some patch-test preparations containing disperse dyes contain impurities with unknown relevance for the development or elicitation of contact allergy. Objective: To evaluate the significance of the impurities found in the commercial dyes Disperse Orange 1 (DO1) and Disperse Yellow 3 (DY3) regarding contact allergy in patients with known sensitivity to them. Metho