Research data warehouse: using electronic health records to conduct population-based observational studies.

Background: Electronic health records and many legacy systems contain rich longitudinal data that can be used for research; however, they typically are not readily available.

Materials And Methods: At Kaiser Permanente Southern California (KPSC), a research data warehouse (RDW) has been developed and maintained since the late 1990s and widely extended in 2006, aggregating and standardizing data collected from internal and a few external sources. This article provides a high-level overview of the RDW and discusses challenges common to data warehouses or repositories for research use.

Inactive USP14 and inactive UCHL5 cause accumulation of distinct ubiquitinated proteins in mammalian cells.

USP14 is a cysteine protease deubiquitinase associated with the proteasome and plays important catalytic and allosteric roles in proteasomal degradation. USP14 inhibition has been considered a therapeutic strategy for accelerating degradation of aggregation-prone proteins in neurodegenerative diseases and for inhibiting proteasome function to induce apoptotic cell death in cancers. Here we studied the effects of USP14 inhibition in mammalian cells using small molecule inhibitors and an inactive USP14 mutant C114A.

Vaccines and the risk of multiple sclerosis and other central nervous system demyelinating diseases.

Importance: Because vaccinations are common, even a small increased risk of multiple sclerosis (MS) or other acquired central nervous system demyelinating syndromes (CNS ADS) could have a significant effect on public health.

Objective: To determine whether vaccines, particularly those for hepatitis B (HepB) and human papillomavirus (HPV), increase the risk of MS or other CNS ADS.

Design, Setting, And Participants: A nested case-control study was conducted using data obtained from the complete electronic health records of Kaiser Permanente Southern California (KPSC) members.

Prevalence of polycystic ovary syndrome in adolescents.

Objective: To investigate the prevalence of polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) in adolescents and its association with obesity.

Design: Cross-sectional study using electronic medical records.

Setting: Not applicable.

Increased unrecognized coronary heart disease and sudden deaths in rheumatoid arthritis: a population-based cohort study.

Objective: To examine the risk of clinical coronary heart disease (CHD) in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) compared with age- and sex-matched non-RA subjects, and to determine whether RA is a risk factor for CHD after accounting for traditional CHD risk factors.

Methods: We assembled a population-based incidence cohort of 603 Rochester, Minnesota residents ages >or=18 years who first fulfilled the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) 1987 criteria for RA between January 1, 1955 and January 1, 1995, and 603 age- and sex-matched non-RA subjects. All subjects were followed up through their complete inpatient and outpatient medical records, beginning at age 18 years until death, migration, or January 1, 2001.

Mutations in CHEK2 associated with prostate cancer risk.

The DNA-damage-signaling pathway has been implicated in all human cancers. However, the genetic defects and the mechanisms of this pathway in prostate carcinogenesis remain poorly understood. In this study, we analyzed CHEK2, the upstream regulator of p53 in the DNA-damage-signaling pathway, in several groups of patients with prostate cancer.