Wiener klinische Wochenschrift
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Wien. Klin. Wochenschr. · Jul 2022
The association between wood dust exposure and respiratory disorders and oxidative stress among furniture workers.
This study was undertaken to determine the effect of wood dust on the respiratory system and oxidative stress in furniture workers and to determine whether any associations exist between respiratory parameters and oxidative stress. ⋯ The present study results indicated that exposure to wood dust significantly increased respiratory disorders and confirmed the association between lung function parameters and oxidative stress.
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Wien. Klin. Wochenschr. · Jul 2022
Temporal patterns of weekly births and conceptions predicted by meteorology, seasonal variation, and lunar phases.
Data reporting the number of births given by women resident in Vienna for each week between 1999 and 2019, and the duration (in weeks) of their pregnancies, were used to estimate the week of conception. When preliminary examinations detected cyclical patterns for births and conceptions, a series of Poisson regressions for births and conceptions were performed to assess whether these cycles could be associated with lunar or solar phases. ⋯ The latter results should be treated with caution, as they are not hypothesis driven. Furthermore, literature reports on this topic are conflicting. Nevertheless, these findings will be useful in further analyses examining air pollution effects.
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Wien. Klin. Wochenschr. · Jun 2022
Multicenter StudyHigh platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio may differentiate polycythemia vera from secondary polycythemia.
Discriminating polycythemia vera (PV) from secondary polycythemia (SP) is crucial due to the inherent risk of thrombosis in PV and different treatment approaches. The majority of PV patients have subnormal serum erythropoietin levels and harbor Janus kinase 2 (JAK2) mutations; however, serum erythropoietin levels may be normal in approximately one third of PV patients and mutational analysis is costly and requires access to specialized laboratories. Recently, neutrophil-to-lymphocyte (NLR) and platelet-to-lymphocyte ratios (PLR) emerged as rapidly available biomarkers to identify PV patients under an increased risk of thrombosis and death. ⋯ According to the receiver operating curve analysis, PLR (area under the curve, AUC 0.936, the optimal cut-off value of > 138.1 had 82.5% sensitivity and 91.67% specificity for the detection of PV) outperformed other tested variables (NLR, total leukocytes, neutrophils, lymphocytes and platelets) and its cut-off values with 100% specificity and sensitivity were able to confirm (PLR > 224.56; 31% patients) and to exclude (PLR < 68.8; 13% patients) the highest proportions of PV patients. Therefore, PLR may represent a cheap and a rapidly available biomarker with valuable diagnostic and prognostic properties. This information may be particularly useful in resource-limited settings; however, our results need validation on larger datasets.