PLoS medicine
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Many but not all studies suggest an association between air pollution exposure and infant mortality. We sought to investigate whether pollution exposure is differentially associated with all-cause neonatal or postneonatal mortality, or specific causes of infant mortality. ⋯ In this study, we found that NO2, PM10, and SO2 were differentially associated with all-cause mortality and with specific causes of infant, neonatal, and postneonatal mortality.
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Metabolically healthy obesity (MHO) and its transition to unhealthy metabolic status have been associated with risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in Western populations. However, it is unclear to what extent metabolic health changes over time and whether such transition affects risks of subtypes of CVD in Chinese adults. We aimed to examine the association of metabolic health status and its transition with risks of subtypes of vascular disease across body mass index (BMI) categories. ⋯ Among Chinese adults, MHO individuals have increased risks of MVE. Obesity remains a risk factor for CVD independent of major metabolic factors. Our data further suggest that metabolic health is a transient state for a large proportion of Chinese adults, with the highest vascular risk among those remained MUOO.
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Biopharmaceutical products (BPs) are widely used to treat autoimmune diseases, but immunogenicity limits their efficacy for an important proportion of patients. Our knowledge of patient-related factors influencing the occurrence of antidrug antibodies (ADAs) is still limited. ⋯ In our study, we found that immunosuppressants and antibiotics were associated with decreased risk of ADA development, whereas tobacco smoking and infections during the study were associated with increased risk. We found that the HLA-DQA1*05 allele was associated with an increased rate of immunogenicity. Moreover, our results suggest a relationship between CXCL12 production and ADA development independent of the disease, which is consistent with its known function in affinity maturation of antibodies and plasma cell survival. Our findings may help physicians in the management of patients receiving biotherapies.
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Vaccination with the 23-valent pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine (PPV23) is available in the United Kingdom to adults aged 65 years or older and those in defined clinical risk groups. We evaluated the vaccine effectiveness (VE) of PPV23 against vaccine-type pneumococcal pneumonia in a cohort of adults hospitalised with community-acquired pneumonia (CAP). ⋯ In the setting of an established national childhood PCV13 vaccination programme, PPV23 vaccination of clinical at-risk patient groups and adults aged ≥65 years provided moderate long-term protection against hospitalisation with PPV23 serotype pneumonia. These findings suggest that PPV23 vaccination may continue to have an important role in adult pneumococcal vaccine policy, including the possibility of revaccination of older adults.
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Observational Study
Developing and validating subjective and objective risk-assessment measures for predicting mortality after major surgery: An international prospective cohort study.
Preoperative risk prediction is important for guiding clinical decision-making and resource allocation. Clinicians frequently rely solely on their own clinical judgement for risk prediction rather than objective measures. We aimed to compare the accuracy of freely available objective surgical risk tools with subjective clinical assessment in predicting 30-day mortality. ⋯ In this study, we observed that the combination of subjective assessment with a parsimonious risk model improved perioperative risk estimation. This may be of value in helping clinicians allocate finite resources such as critical care and to support patient involvement in clinical decision-making.