Articles: mortality.
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Ned Tijdschr Geneeskd · Jan 2011
[Population-based breast cancer screening is not worthwhile. Screening has little effect on mortality].
Comparison of breast cancer mortality between pairs of similar countries (Sweden and Norway, Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic, the Netherlands and Belgium or Flanders), each of which had implemented its population-wide breast cancer screening programme at a different point in time, demonstrated little effect of screening on mortality. In the Netherlands, a well-organised population-wide screening programme was started in the early nineties, ten years before such a programme was introduced in Flanders. We used the 1989-1992 period as a baseline and compared breast cancer mortality in the Netherlands with that in Flanders during the 2005-2008 period. ⋯ A total of 5000 screening mammograms were needed to prevent one death from breast cancer. Breast cancer screening is not a public health priority. Impartial and transparent information on the disadvantages and benefits of breast cancer screening is urgently needed.
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It has never been specified how many of the extended general and inflammatory variables of the 2003 SCCM/ESICM/ACCP/ATS/SIS consensus sepsis definitions are mandatory to define sepsis. ⋯ Frequencies and mortality rates of diagnostic categories of sepsis differ depending on the cut-off for general and inflammatory variables. A cut-off of 3/8 variables is needed to identify almost all patients with septic shock who may benefit from optimal treatment.
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An analysis of excess winter deaths across the West Midlands found higher levels in the NHS Birmingham East and North area than in the rest of the region. The trust created an algorithm to identify those at risk of excess winter death and fuel poverty.
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A high body-mass index (BMI, the weight in kilograms divided by the square of the height in meters) is associated with increased mortality from cardiovascular disease and certain cancers, but the precise relationship between BMI and all-cause mortality remains uncertain. ⋯ In white adults, overweight and obesity (and possibly underweight) are associated with increased all-cause mortality. All-cause mortality is generally lowest with a BMI of 20.0 to 24.9.