Economic burden of asthma: a systematic review.

Background: Asthma is associated with enormous healthcare expenditures that include both direct and indirect costs. It is also associated with the loss of future potential earnings related to both morbidity and mortality. The objective of the study is to determine the burden of disease costs associated with asthma.

Levels of antibodies against cytomegalovirus and Chlamydophila pneumoniae are increased in early onset pre-eclampsia.

Objective: The origins of pre-eclampsia/eclampsia lie in a mismatch between feto-placental demands and utero-placental supply, a situation that also arises in normotensive intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR). Could reactivated chronic infection be both a trigger for these differential maternal responses to the same underlying pathology and a link between pre-eclampsia and its attendant lifelong risks of atherosclerosis?

Design: Nested case-control study.

Setting: Tertiary obstetric centre.