Markedly decreasing incidence of cause-specific blindness in Saxony (Eastern Germany).

Purpose: To analyze the recent time trend in Saxony.

Methods: Data were based on administrative files in Saxony (Eastern Germany) to assess recipients of blindness allowance newly registered between January 1, 2009, and December 31, 2017. We estimated age-sex standardized incidence of all-cause and cause-specific blindness and used Poisson regression to examine age- and sex-adjusted time trends.

Don't Shut the Stable Door after the Phage Has Bolted-The Importance of Bacteriophage Inactivation in Food Environments.

In recent years, a new potential measure against foodborne pathogenic bacteria was rediscovered-bacteriophages. However, despite all their advantages, in connection to their widespread application in the food industry, negative consequences such as an uncontrolled phage spread as well as a development of phage resistant bacteria can occur. These problems are mostly a result of long-term persistence of phages in the food production environment.

Consequences of long-term oral corticosteroid therapy and its side-effects in severe asthma in adults: a focused review of the impact data in the literature.

This review provides an overview of the role of long-term treatment of severe asthma with oral corticosteroids (OCS) and its associated side-effects in adults. It is based on a systematic literature search conducted in MEDLINE, Embase and the Cochrane Library to identify relevant studies. After a short overview of severe asthma and its treatment we present studies showing a dose-response relationship in asthmatic patients treated with OCS and then consider by organ systems the undesired effects demonstrated in clinical and epidemiological studies in patients with OCS-dependent asthma.

Markedly Decreasing Incidence of Blindness in People With and Without Diabetes in Southern Germany.

Objective: Studies comparing the incidence of blindness in persons with and without diabetes are scarce worldwide. In Germany, a decline in the incidence of blindness was found during the 1990s. The aim of this study was to analyze the recent time trend.

A randomised, controlled trial of self-monitoring of blood glucose in patients with type 2 diabetes receiving conventional insulin treatment.

Aims/hypothesis: We evaluated whether self-monitoring of blood glucose (SMBG) leads to better glycaemic control (HbA(1c)) in patients with type 2 diabetes on conventional insulin regimens.

Methods: Patients with type 2 diabetes on a conventional insulin regimen (basal or premixed insulin with or without additional oral glucose-lowering agents) were recruited at study centres led by members of the German Diabetes Association. In a randomised, prospective, open 2 × 2 factorial design, the once-weekly performance of four-point glucose profiles (SMBG +; n = 151 patients) was compared with no SMBG (SMBG -; n = 149), and the measuring and transmitting of HbA1c results to the study centres (HbA(1c) +; n = 158, of these 82 SMBG - and 76 SMBG +) was compared with HbA1c measurement without disclosure of results (HbA(1c) -; n = 142, of these 67 SMBG - and 75 SMBG +).

The sll1951 gene encodes the surface layer protein of Synechocystis sp. strain PCC 6803.

Sll1951 is the surface layer (S-layer) protein of the cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. strain PCC 6803. This large, hemolysin-like protein was found in the supernatant of a strain that was deficient in S-layer attachment.

Evidence for a considerable decrease in total and cause-specific incidences of blindness in Germany.

The objectives of this study are to estimate the recent population-based incidences of all-cause and cause-specific blindness in Germany and compare them with results from a similar study conducted in 1994-1998. All blindness allowance recipients newly registered between January 2008 and December 2009 in a region in southern Germany (population, approximately 3.5 million) were assessed and their ophthalmological reports reviewed.

Reduced incidence of lower-limb amputations in the diabetic population of a German city, 1990-2005: results of the Leverkusen Amputation Reduction Study (LARS).

Objective: We evaluated whether the incidence of amputations in one German city (Leverkusen, population approximately 160,000) had decreased between 1990 and 2005.

Research Design And Methods: From all three hospitals in the city, we obtained complete lists of nontraumatic lower-limb amputations in 1990-1991 and 1994-2005. Only the first observed amputation in residents of Leverkusen was counted.

The endothelin system in Morris hepatoma-7777: an endothelin receptor antagonist inhibits growth in vitro and in vivo.

1. Plasma concentrations of endothelin are increased in patients with hepatocellular cancer as well as in patients with liver metastasis. However, the impact of these findings remains uncertain.

Incidence of blindness in southern Germany due to glaucoma and degenerative conditions.

Purpose: To estimate population-based incidence rates of registered blindness separately, to determine its main causes.

Methods: The files of all newly registered blindness-allowance recipients in Württemberg-Hohenzollern, Germany (population: approximately 5 million), between 1994 and 1998 were reviewed. From ophthalmological reports on file the fulfillment of the German criteria for blindness (visual acuity of 1/50 or less or equivalent reduction of visual function) was ascertained, and the causes of blindness were obtained.