Plos One
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Cervical dystonia is characterized by involuntary, abnormal movements and postures of the head and neck. Current views on its pathophysiology, such as faulty sensorimotor integration and impaired motor planning, are largely based on studies of focal hand dystonia. Using resting state fMRI, we explored whether cervical dystonia patients have altered functional brain connectivity compared to healthy controls, by investigating 10 resting state networks. ⋯ These findings demonstrate the involvement of multiple neural networks in cervical dystonia. The reduced connectivity within the sensorimotor and primary visual networks may provide the neural substrate to expect defective motor planning and disturbed spatial cognition. Increased connectivity within the executive control network suggests excessive attentional control and while this may be a primary trait, perhaps contributing to abnormal motor control, this may alternatively serve a compensatory function in order to reduce the consequences of the motor planning defect inflicted by the other network abnormalities.
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Comparative Study Clinical Trial
Utility of sepsis biomarkers and the infection probability score to discriminate sepsis and systemic inflammatory response syndrome in standard care patients.
Physicians are regularly faced with severely ill patients at risk of developing infections. In literature, standard care wards are often neglected, although their patients frequently suffer from a systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS) of unknown origin. Fast identification of patients with infections is vital, as they immediately require appropriate therapy. ⋯ In summary, the IPS and widely used infection parameters, including CRP or WBC, yielded a poor diagnostic performance for the detection of infection or bacteremia. Additional sepsis biomarkers do not aid in discriminating inflammation from infection. For the prediction of bacteremia procalcitonin, and bilirubin were the most promising parameters, which might be used as a rule for when to take blood cultures or using nucleic acid amplification tests for microbiological diagnostics.
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Meta Analysis
Genetic polymorphism of the kinesin-like protein KIF1B gene and the risk of hepatocellular carcinoma.
Frequent deletions of the kinesin-like protein gene 1B (KIF1B) have been reported in neural tumors. Recently, a genome-wide association study revealed an association between polymorphisms in the KIF1B gene and the risk of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), and several case-control studies have further investigated this relationship. However, these studies have yielded controversial results. We therefore performed a meta-analysis to derive a more precise estimation of the association between the KIF1B gene polymorphisms and HCC risk. ⋯ These findings demonstrate that the presence of the G allele at rs17401966 of the KIF1B gene may decrease the risk for HCC and suggest that KIF1B may play a critical role in the development of HCC. High-quality studies with larger sample sizes and different ethnic populations will be of great value to further confirm these findings.
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Multicenter Study Clinical Trial
Identifying vulnerable populations using a social determinants of health framework: analysis of national survey data across six Asia-Pacific countries.
In order to improve the health of the most vulnerable groups in society, the WHO called for research on the multiple and inter-linking factors shaping the social determinants of health (SDH). This paper analyses four key SDH (social cohesion, social inclusion, social empowerment and socioeconomic security) across six Asia-Pacific countries: Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand. ⋯ This paper provides baseline measures for identifying where and how policy should be altered to improve the SDH. Furthermore, these data can be used for future policy evaluation to identify whether changes in policy have indeed improved the SDH, particularly for marginalised and vulnerable populations.
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Multicenter Study
The continuum of maternal sepsis severity: incidence and risk factors in a population-based cohort study.
To investigate the incidence and risk factors associated with uncomplicated maternal sepsis and progression to severe sepsis in a large population-based birth cohort. ⋯ The rate of severe sepsis was approximately twice the 1991-2003 national estimate. Risk factors identified are relevant to obstetric practice given their cumulative risk effect and the apparent increase in severe sepsis incidence.