Occupational skin diseases in cleaning and kitchen employees: course and quality of life after measures of secondary individual prevention.

Background: Cleaning and kitchen employees have an increased risk of suffering from occupational dermatoses. Prevention including improving individual skin care and skin protection behavior, health education, optimizing diagnostics and therapy as well as avoidance of occupational skin disease (BK 5101) is important.

Patients And Methods: Participants in the courses were patients suspected of having an occupational skin disease.

Health education about occupational allergies and dermatoses for adolescents.

Background: Occupational dermatoses and allergies are frequent and often affect individuals with atopic dermatitis. Our aim was to inform adolescents about potentially dangerous occupations, risk groups and preventive measures before they started apprenticeships in order to minimize the risk of occupational allergies or skin diseases.

Methods: 1015 high-school students were instructed by two dermatologists/ allergists (Heidelberg) and a teacher (Potsdam) in a 90-minute instructional unit.

The relationship between volume and outcome following elective open repair of abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAA) in 131 German hospitals.

Objectives: Several studies indicate that high-volume hospitals have better results in open repair of unruptured abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAA). Up to now no studies had addressed this question in German hospitals.

Design: Post-hoc-analysis from a prospective physician-led registry.

Activity and tolerability of a combined palliative chemotherapy with mitomycin C, folinate, and 5-Fluorouracil in patients with advanced breast cancer after intensive pretreatment: a retrospective analysis.

Objectives: The aim of this retrospective study was to evaluate the activity and toxicity of a combined chemotherapy containing mitomycin, folinate, and 5-fluorouracil (MiFoFU) in patients with advanced metastatic breast cancer and reduced performance status, ie, elderly patients or heavily pretreated patients.

Methods: We studied the charts of 76 patients with progressive metastatic breast cancer who received MiFoFU chemotherapy at our institution between 1997 and 2003. Primary end points were response and time-to-progression (TTP); secondary end points were overall survival (OAS) and tolerability.

[Tick bites and borreliosis in children attending forest kindergarten: a challenge for prevention].

Aim: The aim of this study was to analyse the influence of preventive measures on the risk of being bitten by a tick and of suffering from borreliosis in children attending so-called 'forest kindergartens' (nurseries located in forested areas where children spend all-season full-time outdoors), compared to children attending regular kindergartens. In addition, we aimed to analyse sources of information and the risk of being bitten more than once.

Methods: 53 kindergartens (25 forest kindergartens, 28 regular kindergartens) in the state of Baden-Württemberg, Germany participated in this study and protective parental behaviour was recorded.

Serum levels of hepatocyte growth factor/scatter factor in patients with liver metastases from breast cancer.

Objective: Recent studies have shown that the pleiotropic cytokine hepatocyte growth factor/scatter factor (HGF/SF) and its receptor c-Met play major roles in the malignant progression of numerous tumors. For patients with breast cancer liver metastases, increased serum levels of HGF/SF have been reported. We studied the relationship between the clinical course of the disease and the serum levels of HGF/SF in such patients.

Male lifespan and the secondary sex ratio.

Literature speculating on the fetal origins of later life morbidity often invokes the "damaged cohort" theory, i.e., that maternal responses to exogenous shocks induce "stress reactivity" in fetuses and thereby shorten the lifespan of males in utero during stressful times.

Pruritus as a leading symptom: clinical characteristics and quality of life in German and Ugandan patients.

Background: Pruritus is the most frequent and distressing symptom associated with dermatoses and various internal and neurological diseases.

Objectives: To investigate two different populations of patients with pruritus, one in Germany and one in Uganda, with a particular focus on clinical characteristics, aetiology and quality of life.

Methods: We investigated by questionnaire 132 patients (59 men, 73 women, mean age 54.

Exogenous shocks to the human sex ratio: the case of September 11, 2001 in New York City.

Background: The human secondary sex ratio reportedly falls in populations subjected to exogenous stressors such as earthquakes or political and social upheavals. Explanations of the association include reduced conception of males and increased fetal deaths among males. The latter explanation has been supported by research reporting that the sex ratio in California fell 3 months, but not 8, 9 or 10 months, after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

Child mortality and cohort lifespan: a test of diminished entelechy.

Background: The literature implies a 'diminished entelechy' hypothesis in which birth cohorts subjected to relatively many or relatively virulent environmental insults early in life do not realize their otherwise expected lifespan. No direct test of this hypothesis appears in literature.

Methods: We test the hypothesis directly by measuring the association between mortality in the first 5 years and life expectancy at age 5 for male and female cohorts born in Sweden (1751-1912), Denmark (1835-1913), and England and Wales (1841-1912).

Primary prevention in health care employees: a prospective intervention study with a 3-year training period.

Irritant contact dermatitis is a mayor problem in health care employees. Because educational programs have shown convincing success in certain occupations (e.g.

Radio-guided surgery for persistent differentiated papillary thyroid cancer: case presentations and review of the literature.

Background And Aims: Persistent differentiated papillary thyroid cancer following radical locoregional surgery with metastases is an indication for limited reoperation or radioiodine therapy. Following injection of radioiodine, radio-guided surgery with application of an intraoperative gamma probe offers detection of metastases not seen by conventional imaging and control of completeness of resection.

Patients/methods: We demonstrate four patients with locoregional metastases, two of them with additional distant metastases of papillary thyroid cancer following radical neck surgery.

Secondary sex ratios and male lifespan: damaged or culled cohorts.

Population stressors reportedly reduce the human secondary sex ratio (i.e., the odds of a newborn's being male) by, among other mechanisms, inducing the spontaneous abortion of males who would have been born live had mothers not been stressed.

Epidemiology of tick bites and borreliosis in children attending kindergarten or so-called "forest kindergarten" in southwest Germany.

The so-called "forest kindergartens" have been increasingly popular in Germany since the beginning of the 1990s. These are nurseries located in forested areas where children spend all-season full-time outdoors. Fifty-three kindergartens in the state of Baden-Württemberg, Germany participated in this study.

Prognostic factors for patients with liver metastases from breast cancer.

Background: The prognosis of patients with liver metastases from breast cancer is commonly poor. After initial diagnosis of hepatic metastases, a median survival time of 1-20 months can be expected. The definition of prognostic factors for such patients may influence therapeutic decisions.

Population stress and the Swedish sex ratio.

Well-developed theory implies that the human secondary sex ratio moves inversely over time with the level of anxiety and depression in the population. Few tests of this hypothesis, however, appear in the voluminous literature concerned with the sex ratio. These tests, moreover, employ designs that allow only weak inference.

Economic antecedents of sudden infant death syndrome.

Purpose: To test the hypothesis that labor market contraction is associated with an elevated number of deaths due to sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).

Methods: We apply time-series methods to monthly counts of SIDS deaths and total employment from the state of California beginning January 1989 and ending December 2001. The methods control for trends, seasonal cycles, and other forms of autocorrelation that could induce spurious associations.

The objective severity assessment of atopic dermatitis (OSAAD) score: validity, reliability and sensitivity in adult patients with atopic dermatitis.

Background: The Objective Severity Assessment of Atopic Dermatitis (OSAAD) score is a recently developed scale for evaluation of severity of atopic dermatitis, constructed from the assessment of epidermal barrier function, and properties using noninvasive bioengineering methods and computer-assisted estimates of disease extent. The method has been validated for use in infants and children with atopic dermatitis and compared with a referent scoring system.

Objectives: The aim of the present study was to test the validity, reliability and sensitivity of the OSAAD score as an objective tool for the assessment of the severity of atopic dermatitis in adult patients.

MnSOD polymorphisms in sensitized patients with delayed-type hypersensitivity reactions to the chemical allergen para-phenylene diamine: a case-control study.

Dyes such as para-phenylene diamine (PPD) or related para-compounds are very common contact sensitizers in man. The corresponding contact dermatitis in sensitized individuals is a complex and common illness associated with considerable morbidity and social cost. It has been found that oxidative stress from reactive oxygen species (ROS) may play an important role in the pre-immunological phase of allergic contact dermatitis to PPD.

Fetal death sex ratios: a test of the economic stress hypothesis.

Background: The ratio of male to female live births (i.e. the sex ratio) reportedly falls when populations suffer rare and extreme ambient stressors such as the collapse of national economies.

[Reoperation for thyroid cancer].

Reoperation for thyroid cancer needs to consider patient-, tumor- and therapy-related aspects as well as present diagnostic results. Reoperation because of thyroid remnants, persistence of the primary tumor and lymph node metastasis (completion surgery) has to be distinguished from reoperation due to locoregional recurrence (primary tumor, lymph nodes). The primary surgical strategy should avoid the need for reoperation.

Sex ratios in California following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

Background: Natural and man-made disasters as well as declining economies appear to coincide with reduced odds of male live births among humans (i.e. lower secondary sex ratio).

[Statistical analysis of community-based studies -- presentation and comparison of possible solutions with reference to statistical meta-analytic methods].

Purpose: The statistical analysis of community-based trials and of other cluster-randomised trials, requires specific statistical methods. We show the consequences of the application of these models for study results, using data of the German Cardiovascular Prevention Study (GCP) as an example.

Methods: Data of 30,285 subjects were analysed, which were collected at the beginning and at the end of the study period.