Differential levels of circulating RNAs prior to endometrial cancer diagnosis.

Endometrial cancer (EC) is one of the most common female cancers and there is currently no routine screening strategy for early detection. An altered abundance of circulating microRNAs (miRNAs) and other RNA classes have the potential as early cancer biomarkers. We analyzed circulating RNA levels using small RNA sequencing, targeting RNAs in the size range of 17-47 nucleotides, in EC patients with samples collected prior to diagnosis compared to cancer-free controls.

Maternal physical activity affects yolk sac size and growth in early pregnancy, but girls and boys use different strategies.

This longitudinal study investigated the impact of actigraphy-measured maternal physical activity on yolk sac size during early development. The yolk sac, a transient extraembryonic organ, plays a crucial role in embryonic development and is involved in metabolism, nutrition, growth, and hematopoiesis. Prospectively collected data from 190 healthy women indicated that their total daily physical activity, including both light and moderate-vigorous activity, was associated with yolk sac growth dynamics depending on embryonic sex and gestational age.

A first-level customization study of SAPS II with Norwegian Intensive Care and Pandemic Registry (NIPaR) data.

Background: Severity scores and mortality prediction models (MPMs) are important tools for benchmarking and stratification in the intensive care unit (ICU) and need to be regularly updated using data from a local and contextual cohort. Simplified acute physiology score II (SAPS II) is widely used in European ICUs.

Methods: A first-level customization was performed on the SAPS II model using data from the Norwegian Intensive Care and Pandemic Registry (NIPaR).

Effect of maternal sleep on embryonic development.

The concept of developmental origin of health and disease has ignited a search for mechanisms and health factors influencing normal intrauterine development. Sleep is a basic health factor with substantial individual variation, but its implication for early prenatal development remains unclear. During the embryonic period, the yolk sac is involved in embryonic nutrition, growth, hematopoiesis, and likely in fetal programming.

Changes in life expectancy and disease burden in Norway, 1990-2019: an analysis of the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019.

Background: Geographical differences in health outcomes are reported in many countries. Norway has led an active policy aiming for regional balance since the 1970s. Using data from the Global Burden of Disease Study (GBD) 2019, we examined regional differences in development and current state of health across Norwegian counties.

Appraising Drugs Based on Cost-effectiveness and Severity of Disease in Norwegian Drug Coverage Decisions.

Importance: Rising health care costs are a major health policy challenge globally. Norway has implemented a priority-setting system intended to balance cost-effectiveness and concerns for fair distribution, but little is known about this strategy and whether it works in practice.

Objective: To present and evaluate a systematic drug appraisal method that uses the severity of disease to account for a fair distribution of health in cost-effectiveness analysis, forming the basis for price negotiations and coverage decisions.

Health equity impact of community-initiated kangaroo mother care: a randomized controlled trial.

Background: Kangaroo mother care (KMC) can substantially enhance overall survival of low birthweight babies. In a large randomized controlled trial, we recently showed that supporting mothers to provide community initiated KMC (ciKMC) can reduce mortality among infants up to 180 days of life by 25% (hazard ratio (HR) 0.75).

Isolated oral clefts and school grades: population-based cohort study from Norway.

Objective: To compare school grades of adolescents in Norway born with isolated cleft with those of their unaffected peers.

Design: Population-based cohort study.

Setting: Norway.

Sleep and physical activity from before conception to the end of pregnancy in healthy women: a longitudinal actigraphy study.

Background: Sleep and physical activity changes are common in pregnancy, but longitudinal data starting before conception are scarce. Our aim was to determine the changes of the daily total sleep time (TST) and physical activity duration (PAD) from before conception to end of pregnancies in respect of pregestational maternal factors.

Methods: This longitudinal observational study formed part of the CONIMPREG research project and recruited healthy women planning to become pregnant.

Frailty and survival in elderly intensive care patients in Norway.

Background: Today, 10%-15% of Norwegian intensive care patients are ≥80 years. This proportion will increase significantly over the next 20 years, but it is unlikely that resources for intensive care increase correspondingly. Thus, it is important to establish which patients among elderly people will benefit from intensive care.

Estimating Health Adjusted Age at Death (HAAD).

Objectives: At any point in time, a person's lifetime health is the number of healthy life years they are expected to experience during their lifetime. In this article we propose an equity-relevant health metric, Health Adjusted Age at Death (HAAD), that facilitates comparison of lifetime health for individuals at the onset of different medical conditions, and allows for the assessment of which patient groups are worse off. A method for estimating HAAD is presented, and we use this method to rank four conditions in six countries according to several criteria of "worse off" as a proof of concept.

A flexible formula for incorporating distributive concerns into cost-effectiveness analyses: Priority weights.

Background: Cost effectiveness analyses (CEAs) are widely used to evaluate the opportunity cost of health care investments. However, few functions that take equity concerns into account are available for such CEA methods, and these concerns are therefore at risk of being disregarded. Among the functions that have been developed, most focus on the distribution of health gains, as opposed to the distribution of lifetime health.

A genome-wide scan of cleft lip triads identifies parent-of-origin interaction effects between and maternal smoking, and between and alcohol consumption.

Although both genetic and environmental factors have been reported to influence the risk of isolated cleft lip with or without cleft palate (CL/P), the exact mechanisms behind CL/P are still largely unaccounted for. We recently developed new methods to identify parent-of-origin (PoO) interactions with environmental exposures (PoOxE) and now apply them to data from a genome-wide association study (GWAS) of families with children born with isolated CL/P. Genotypes from 1594 complete triads and 314 dyads (1908 nuclear families in total) with CL/P were available for the current analyses.

Novel protein signatures suggest progression to muscular invasiveness in bladder cancer.

Patients with bladder cancer need frequent controls over long follow-up time due to high recurrence rate and risk of conversion to muscle invasive cancer with poor prognosis. We identified cancer-related molecular signatures in apparently healthy bladder in patients with subsequent muscular invasiveness during follow-up. Global proteomics of the normal tissue biopsies revealed specific proteome fingerprints in these patients prior to subsequent muscular invasiveness.

Cerebrovascular reactivity after treatment of unruptured intracranial aneurysms--A transcranial Doppler sonography and acetazolamide study.

Background: Cerebrovascular reactivity (CVR) is defined as the change in cerebral blood flow, or blood velocity, in response to a vasoactive stimulus. There is a possible association between impaired CVR and vasospasm after aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage. Most studies on CVR and vasospasm have used healthy subjects as reference.

Atherosclerosis in Trial of Org 10172 in Acute Stroke Treatment Subtypes among Young and Middle-Aged Stroke Patients: The Norwegian Stroke in the Young Study.

Background: Ischemic stroke patients subtyped as of undetermined cause (SUC) usually outnumber those with determined cause subtypes. Etiological stroke classifications may lead to neglect of parallel, noncausative findings. Atherosclerosis progresses over decades and is associated with high morbidity and mortality in young stroke patients in long-term follow-up studies.

Folic acid supplements and risk for oral clefts in the newborn: a population-based study.

Results from previous studies on maternal folic acid intake and infant oral clefts are inconclusive. The aim of the present study was to investigate the association between women's use of folic acid and/or multivitamin supplements and the risk for oral cleft in the newborn. We used data from the Medical Birth Registry of Norway based on all births in Norway from 1999 to 2013.

Targeted program for provision of mother's own milk to very low birth weight infants.

Objective: Evaluate the effect of an evolving targeted program to encourage mothers to provide own milk (MM) to their very low birth weight (VLBW) infants in a traditional open-bay NICU.

Methods: Retrospective review of medical records on all VLBW infants (birth weight <1500 g) born in a geographical region of Norway in 1986/1987, 1996, and 2007/2008 (n = 203). Types of nutrition and data on maternal and infant health were prospectively and similarly recorded during all time periods.

Risk factors and their impact on carotid intima-media thickness in young and middle-aged ischemic stroke patients and controls: the Norwegian Stroke in the Young Study.

Background: Vascular morbidity and mortality due to cardiovascular disease (CVD) are high after ischemic stroke at a young age. Data on carotid intima-media thickness (cIMT) as marker of atherosclerosis are scarce for young stroke populations. In this prospective case-control study, we examined cIMT, the burden of vascular risk factors (RF) and their associations among young and middle-aged ischemic stroke patients and controls.

Carotid intima-media thickness--a potential predictor for rupture risk of intracranial aneurysms.

Background: Individual assessment of rupture risk of cerebral aneurysms is challenging, and increased knowledge of predictors for aneurysm rupture is needed. Smoking and hypertension are shared risk factors for atherosclerotic disease and cerebral aneurysms, and patients with atherosclerosis have an increased prevalence of intracranial aneurysms. Carotid ultrasound with evaluation of intima-media thickness (IMT) is a non-invasive, safe, rapid, well-validated and reproducible technique for quantification of subclinical atherosclerosis and assessment of cardio- and cerebrovascular risk.

Quantitative proteomics comparison of arachnoid cyst fluid and cerebrospinal fluid collected perioperatively from arachnoid cyst patients.

Background: There is little knowledge concerning the content and the mechanisms of filling of arachnoid cysts. The aim of this study was to compare the protein content of arachnoid cysts and cerebrospinal fluid by quantitative proteomics to increase the understanding of arachnoid cysts.

Methods: Arachnoid cyst fluid and cerebrospinal fluid from five patients were analyzed by quantitative proteomics in two separate experiments.