Leveraging EUnetHTA's conceptual framework to compare HTA decision drivers in France, Italy, and Germany from a manufacturer's point of view.

Background: Health Technology Assessments (HTA) procedures differ substantially across the various European countries. We reviewed recent appraisals of a pharmaceutical manufacturer in three major European markets (France; Italy; Germany) and identified and categorized related decision drivers.

Methods: New marketing authorisation between January 2011 and August 2017, and Roche being the Marketing Authorization Holder, were included.

The role of circulating sex hormones in menstrual cycle-dependent modulation of pain-related brain activation.

Sex differences in pain sensitivity have been consistently found, but the basis for these differences is incompletely understood. The present study assessed how pain-related neural processing varies across the menstrual cycle in normally cycling, healthy women, and whether menstrual cycle effects are based on fluctuating sex hormone levels. Fifteen subjects participated in 4 test sessions during their menstrual, midfollicular, ovulatory, and midluteal phases.

Expressive aphasia in a patient with recent dual-chamber cardioverter-defibrillator implantation: a preventable complication.

Transvenous pacemaker and/or defibrillator lead placement into the left heart chambers is rarely done. Approximately a third of such cases reported in the literature presented with signs of thromboembolism, mostly neurological deficits. We describe a patient who presented with a cerebrovascular accident three months after inadvertent and unrecognized lead placement into the left atrium and ventricle through a sinus venosus atrial septal defect.