Red cell distribution width as predictor for mortality in critically ill patients.

Background: The objective of this study was to evaluate whether the red cell distribution width (RDW) is a significant risk factor for hospital mortality in critically ill patients and to investigate whether RDW is a parameter indicating inflammation, or a risk factor independent of inflammation.

Methods: We studied all patients admitted to a ten-bed mixed intensive care unit in the Netherlands between May 2005 and December 2011 for whom RDW was available, and who had not received a blood transfusion in the preceding three months. Inflammation was measured by C-reactive protein and leucocyte count.

Estimated incidence of sickle-cell disease in Aruba and St. Maarten suggests cost-effectiveness of a universal screening programme for St. Maarten.

Objective: To estimate the incidence of Sickle-Cell Disease (SCD) in Aruba and St. Maarten and to determine whether universal screening would be cost-effective according to United Kingdom criteria.

Methods: Consecutive cord blood samples were collected in Aruba and the Dutch part of St.

Plasma choline and betaine and their relation to plasma homocysteine in normal pregnancy.

Background: Plasma concentrations of total homocysteine (tHcy) decrease during pregnancy. This reduction has been investigated in relation to folate status, but no study has addressed the possible role of betaine and its precursor choline.

Objective: We investigated the courses of plasma choline and betaine during normal human pregnancy and their relations to plasma tHcy.

[From a hippopotamus tooth to a porcelain tooth].

The history of dentistry is written as if thousands of years of obscurity were followed by a couple of hundred years of enlightenment. The turning point was the work of the Father of Modern Dentistry Pierre Fauchard (1678-1761). But historically speaking this notion of progress has theoretical and practical disadvantages.

[Tooth decoration back after a long and forgotten history 2].

After the last ice-age modern man started to remove, file, dye and inlay teeth. The teeth had such a central role in the imagination that the habit of more or less ritual decoration by incurable manipulation of the teeth spread all over the world. The most skillful and artistic work was done by craftsmen of the Maya.