Finnish children who needed long-term home respiratory support had severe sleep-disordered breathing and complex medical backgrounds.

Aim: No studies have described long-term paediatric home respiratory support in Nordic countries. We examined the clinical characteristics and long-term outcomes of paediatric patients who received continuous positive airway pressure, non-invasive-positive-pressure ventilation and invasive ventilation from a multidisciplinary home respiratory support team.

Methods: Retrospective tertiary-level data were collected between 1 January 2010 and 31 December 2020 in Tampere University Hospital.

Prevalence and evolution of snoring and the associated factors in two-year-old children.

Objectives: To evaluate the prevalence and persistence of snoring during the first two years of life in two Finnish birth cohorts and to assess the associated factors.

Study Design: The study population comprised 947 children from the CHILD-SLEEP (CS) and 1393 children from the FinnBrain (FB) birth cohorts. Questionnaires were provided to both parents when the child was 24 months of age.

Association between snoring and deciduous dental development and soft tissue profile in 3-year-old children.

Introduction: The aim was to study the association between snoring and development of occlusion, maxillary dental arch, and soft tissue profile in children with newly completed deciduous dentition.

Methods: Thirty-two (18 female, 14 male) parent-reported snorers (snoring ≥3 nights/week) and 19 (14 female, 6 male) nonsnorers were recruited. Breathing preference (nose or mouth) was assessed at the mean age of 27 months by otorhinolaryngologist.

Parental reports showed that snoring in infants at three and eight months associated with snoring parents and smoking mothers.

Aim: This prospective study examined the prevalence of snoring during infancy and the prenatal and postnatal risk factors for this condition.

Methods: The study population comprised 1388 infants from the CHILD-SLEEP birth cohort, who were recruited in the Pirkanmaa Hospital District, Finland, between 2011 and 2013. Sleep and background factor questionnaires were filled out prenatally by parents and when the infant was three and eight months old.

Dysbiosis in Snoring Children: An Interlink to Comorbidities?

Background And Objectives: Early microbial colonization has a key impact on infant health through nutritional, immunological, and metabolic programming. The origin of child snoring is multifactorial and complex, and may thereby also generate long-term health problems. The link between child snoring and gut microbes remains unclear, although indirect evidence exists regarding this relationship.

Patient-reported complications associated with Campylobacter jejuni infection.

This study aimed to investigate the occurrence of complications, especially musculoskeletal symptoms, after sporadic Campylobacter jejuni enteritis of domestic origin in Finland. This multi-centre cross-sectional study was conducted during a seasonal peak in 2002. Questionnaires were sent to Campylobacter-positive patients, representing different geographical areas, 2 months after collection of positive stool samples.

Intrauterine bacterial growth at birth and risk of asthma and allergic sensitization among offspring at the age of 15 to 17 years.

Background: Microbial colonization of the airways and intestine during birth might have an effect on the risk of asthma and allergic diseases later in life.

Objective: We sought to evaluate the association between intrauterine microbial growth at the time of delivery and the development of asthma and allergic sensitization among offspring.

Methods: Intrauterine bacterial culture results were recorded at the time of cesarean delivery of 460 children who were born at Kuopio University Hospital during 1990-1992.

Mycobacteria and fungi in moisture-damaged building materials.

In contrast to the growth of fungi, the growth of mycobacteria in moisture-damaged building materials has rarely been studied. Environmental mycobacteria were isolated from 23% of samples of moisture-damaged materials (n = 88). The occurrence of mycobacteria increased with increasing concentrations of fungi.

Strain and host characteristics of Campylobacter jejuni infections in Finland.

The relative importance of different risk-factors for Campylobacter infections and the role of bacterial strain and host characteristics are uncertain. Swimming in natural sources of water was recently described as a novel independent risk-factor for domestically-acquired Campylobacter infections. The present study investigated exposure factors and demographical characteristics (collected in a questionnaire), and determined whether Campylobacter jejuni serotypes could be linked to each other or to the severity of the disease in domestically-acquired sporadic C.

Activities of telithromycin, erythromycin, fluoroquinolones, and doxycycline against Campylobacter strains isolated from Finnish subjects.

The in vitro susceptibilities of 478 Campylobacter jejuni and Campylobacter coli strains isolated from Finnish subjects during 2002 to 2004 were determined. Susceptibility to erythromycin remained high, and telithromycin did not offer any advantage over erythromycin. Reduced susceptibilities to fluoroquinolones and doxycycline were detected almost exclusively among isolates of foreign origin.

Mycobacterium florentinum sp. nov., isolated from humans.

Eight mycobacterial strains isolated during an 11 year period from the sputum of independent patients with various pulmonary disorders and, in one case, from a lymph node of a young girl, were found to present identical features. Phenotypic and genotypic characteristics revealed that the most closely related species to these test isolates were Mycobacterium triplex and Mycobacterium lentiflavum. However, the lipids of the cell wall of the test isolates differed from those of the latter species by TLC and presented unique profiles by both GC and HPLC.

Persistent Legionella pneumophila colonization of a hospital water supply: efficacy of control methods and a molecular epidemiological analysis.

After a nosocomial outbreak caused by Legionella pneumophila serogroup 5, the hospital water distribution system, which was found to be colonized by L. pneumophila serogroups 5 and 6, was decontaminated by the superheat and flush method and by installing an additional heat-shock unit in one of the hot water circuits. This unit exposed the recirculated water to a temperature of 80 degrees C.

Non-tuberculous mycobacteria: patterns of isolation. A multi-country retrospective survey.

Objective: To collect data on non-tuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) isolated from clinical laboratories in different countries to establish: 1) whether the isolation of NTM was increasing, 2) which species were increasing, and 3) whether there was any pattern of geographical distribution.

Design: In 1996, the Working Group of the Bacteriology and Immunology Section of the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease contacted 50 laboratories in different countries for the necessary information.

Results: The number of patients reported with NTM was 36099 from 14 countries.

Swimming and Campylobacter infections.

A matched case-control study was conducted to study risk factors for domestically acquired sporadic Campylobacter infections in Finland. Swimming in natural sources of water was a novel risk factor. Eating undercooked meat and drinking dug-well water were also independent risk factors for Campylobacter infection.

Potentially pathogenic, slow-growing mycobacteria released into workplace air during the remediation of buildings.

Construction workers' exposure to airborne viable mycobacteria was studied during the remediation of three moldy and two nonmoldy buildings. Furthermore, the concentrations of airborne fungal and actinobacterial spores were determined. The samples for the microbial analyses were collected using a six-stage impactor and an all-glass impinger sampler, and by filter sampling.

Mycobacteria in water and loose deposits of drinking water distribution systems in Finland.

Drinking water distribution systems were analyzed for viable counts of mycobacteria by sampling water from waterworks and in different parts of the systems. In addition, loose deposits collected during mechanical cleaning of the main pipelines were similarly analyzed. The study covered 16 systems at eight localities in Finland.

Colonization of hospital water systems by legionellae, mycobacteria and other heterotrophic bacteria potentially hazardous to risk group patients.

Occurrences of legionellae and nontuberculous mycobacteria were followed in water systems of a tertiary care hospital where nosocomial infections due to the two genera had been verified. The aim was to examine whether their occurrence in the circulating hot water can be controlled by addition of a heat-shock unit in the circulation system, and by intensified cleaning of the tap and shower heads. One hot water system examined had an inbuilt heat-shock system causing a temporary increase of temperature to 80 degrees C, the other was an ordinary system (60 degrees C).

Gas-chromatographic lipid profiles in identification of currently known slowly growing environmental mycobacteria.

Cellular fatty acid analysis by GLC is widely used in the species identification of mycobacteria. Combining mycolic acid cleavage products with shorter cellular fatty acids increases the informative value of the analysis. A key has been created to aid in the identification of all currently known slowly growing environmental species.

Nosocomial Legionella pneumophila serogroup 5 outbreak associated with persistent colonization of a hospital water system.

An outbreak of infections caused by Legionella pneumophila serogroup 5 was detected in a university hospital, and nosocomial reservoirs of the legionella epidemic were examined. Clinical isolates from two patients who had been affected by the L. pneumophila serogroup 5 outbreak, and from another patient with a legionella infection caused by the same serogroup 3 years later, were compared to L.

Susceptibility testing with the manual mycobacteria growth indicator tube (MGIT) and the MGIT 960 system provides rapid and reliable verification of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis.

The objective of the study was to compare the manual Mycobacteria Growth Indicator Tube (MGIT) method and the BACTEC MGIT 960 system to the BACTEC 460 method for susceptibility testing of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The evaluation was based on testing of 36 M. tuberculosis strains with various susceptibilities to isoniazid (INH), rifampin (RMP), ethambutol (EMB), and streptomycin (SM).

Detection and typing of Campylobacter jejuni and Campylobacter coli and analysis of indicator organisms in three waterborne outbreaks in Finland.

Waterborne outbreaks associated with contamination of drinking water by Campylobacter jejuni are rather common in the Nordic countries Sweden, Norway, and Finland, where in sparsely populated districts groundwater is commonly used without disinfection. Campylobacters, Escherichia coli, or other coliforms have rarely been detected in potential sources. We studied three waterborne outbreaks in Finland caused by C.