Tobacco use as a risk factor for reoperation in patients with stress urinary incontinence: a multi-institutional electronic medical record database analysis.

Introduction And Hypothesis: Recurrence rates of stress urinary incontinence after surgery are reported to be between 8 to 15%. Both surgical technique and non-surgical risk factors have been shown to affect post-operative outcomes. Tobacco use is a possible risk factor that may increase the surgical failure rate, however, there are currently conflicting reports in the literature regarding the affect of tobacco use on surgical outcomes.

How meaningful are heritability estimates of liability?

It is commonly acknowledged that estimates of heritability from classical twin studies have many potential shortcomings. Despite this, in the post-GWAS era, these heritability estimates have come to be a continual source of interest and controversy. While the heritability estimates of a quantitative trait are subject to a number of biases, in this article we will argue that the standard statistical approach to estimating the heritability of a binary trait relies on some additional untestable assumptions which, if violated, can lead to badly biased estimates.