Lancet
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Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter Study
Screening and prostate cancer mortality: results of the European Randomised Study of Screening for Prostate Cancer (ERSPC) at 13 years of follow-up.
The European Randomised study of Screening for Prostate Cancer (ERSPC) has shown significant reductions in prostate cancer mortality after 9 years and 11 years of follow-up, but screening is controversial because of adverse events such as overdiagnosis. We provide updated results of mortality from prostate cancer with follow-up to 2010, with analyses truncated at 9, 11, and 13 years. ⋯ Each centre had its own funding responsibility.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter Study
Oral ponesimod in patients with chronic plaque psoriasis: a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled phase 2 trial.
We assessed the efficacy, safety, and tolerability of ponesimod, an oral, selective, reversible modulator of sphingosine 1-phosphate receptor 1, in patients with moderate to severe chronic plaque psoriasis. ⋯ Actelion Pharmaceuticals.
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Zoonotic influenza viruses that are a few mutations away from pandemic viruses circulate in animals, and can evolve into airborne-transmissible viruses in human beings. Paradoxically, such viruses only occasionally emerge in people; the four influenza pandemics that occurred in the past 100 years were caused by zoonotic viruses that acquired efficient transmissibility. ⋯ Therefore, an impaired immune response might be needed for within-host emergence of a pandemic virus and replication to titres allowing transmission. Immunocompromised individuals--eg, those with comorbidities, of advanced age, or receiving immunosuppressive treatment--could be at increased risk of generating transmissible viruses and initiating chains of human-to-human infection.
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Hepatitis B virus infection is a major public health problem worldwide; roughly 30% of the world's population show serological evidence of current or past infection. Hepatitis B virus is a partly double-stranded DNA virus with several serological markers: HBsAg and anti-HBs, HBeAg and anti-HBe, and anti-HBc IgM and IgG. It is transmitted through contact with infected blood and semen. ⋯ Overall, as much as 40% of men and 15% of women with perinatally acquired hepatitis B virus infection will die of liver cirrhosis or hepatocellular carcinoma. In addition to decreasing hepatic inflammation, long-term antiviral treatment can reverse cirrhosis and reduce hepatocellular carcinoma. Development of new therapies that can improve HBsAg clearance and virological cure is warranted.