Revising cancer incidence in a Central European country: a Hungarian nationwide study between 2011-2019 based on a health insurance fund database.

Background: The nationwide HUN-CANCER EPI study examined cancer incidence and mortality rates in Hungary from 2011 to 2019.

Methods: Using data from the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) and Hungarian Central Statistical Office (HCSO), our retrospective study analyzed newly diagnosed malignancies between Jan 1, 2011, and Dec 31, 2019. Age-standardized incidence and mortality rates were calculated for all and for different tumor types using both the 1976 and 2013 European Standard Populations (ESP).

Effectiveness of SARS-CoV-2 primary vaccines and boosters in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus in Hungary (HUN-VE 4 Study).

Introduction: Type 2 diabetes mellitus is a risk factor for severe COVID-19 infection and is associated with increased risk of complications. The present study aimed to investigate effectiveness and persistence of different COVID vaccines in persons with or without diabetes during the Delta wave in Hungary.

Research Design And Methods: Data sources were the national COVID-19 registry data from the National Public Health Center and the National Health Insurance Fund on the total Hungarian population.

Waning of SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine Effectiveness in COPD Patients: Lessons from the Delta Variant.

Although the COVID-19 pandemic is profoundly changing, data on the effect of vaccination and duration of protection against infection and severe disease can still be advantageous, especially for patients with COPD, who are more vulnerable to respiratory infections. The Hungarian COVID-19 registry was retrospectively investigated for risk of infection and hospitalization by time since the last vaccination, and vaccine effectiveness (VE) was calculated in adults with COPD diagnosis and an exact-matched control group during the Delta variant of concern (VOC) wave in Hungary (September-December 2021). For the matching, sex, age, major co-morbidities, vaccination status, and prior infection data were obtained on 23 August 2021.

Opposite trends in incidence of breast cancer in young and old female cohorts in Hungary and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic: a nationwide study between 2011-2020.

Background: This nationwide study examined breast cancer (BC) incidence and mortality rates in Hungary between 2011-2019, and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the incidence and mortality rates in 2020 using the databases of the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) and Central Statistical Office (CSO) of Hungary.

Methods: Our nationwide, retrospective study included patients who were newly diagnosed with breast cancer (International Codes of Diseases ICD)-10 C50) between Jan 1, 2011 and Dec 31, 2020. Age-standardized incidence and mortality rates (ASRs) were calculated using European Standard Populations (ESP).

Wastewater-based modeling, reconstruction, and prediction for COVID-19 outbreaks in Hungary caused by highly immune evasive variants.

(motivation): Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) has emerged as a promising approach for monitoring the COVID-19 pandemic, since the measurement process is cost-effective and is exposed to fewer potential errors compared to other indicators like hospitalization data or the number of detected cases. Consequently, WBE was gradually becoming a key tool for epidemic surveillance and often the most reliable data source, as the intensity of clinical testing for COVID-19 drastically decreased by the third year of the pandemic. Recent results suggests that the model-based fusion of wastewater measurements with clinical data and other indicators is essential in future epidemic surveillance.

Underlying reasons for post-mortem diagnosed lung cancer cases - A robust retrospective comparative study from Hungary (HULC study).

Objective: The Hungarian Undiagnosed Lung Cancer (HULC) study aimed to explore the potential reasons for missed LC (lung cancer) diagnosis by comparing healthcare and socio-economic data among patients with post-mortem diagnosed LC with those who were diagnosed with LC during their lives.

Methods: This nationwide, retrospective study used the databases of the Hungarian Central Statistical Office (HCSO) and National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) to identify patients who died between January 1, 2019 and December 31, 2019 and were diagnosed with lung cancer post-mortem (population A) or during their lifetime (population B). Patient characteristics, socio-economic factors, and healthcare resource utilization (HCRU) data were compared between the diagnosed and undiagnosed patient population.

Effectiveness and Waning of Protection With Different SARS-CoV-2 Primary and Booster Vaccines During the Delta Pandemic Wave in 2021 in Hungary (HUN-VE 3 Study).

Background: In late 2021, the pandemic wave was dominated by the Delta SARS-CoV-2 variant in Hungary. Booster vaccines were offered for the vulnerable population starting from August 2021.

Methods: The nationwide HUN-VE 3 study examined the effectiveness and durability of primary immunization and single booster vaccinations in the prevention of SARS-CoV-2 infection, Covid-19 related hospitalization and mortality during the Delta wave, compared to an unvaccinated control population without prior SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Booster Vaccination Decreases 28-Day All-Cause Mortality of the Elderly Hospitalized Due to SARS-CoV-2 Delta Variant.

(1) Background: SARS-CoV-2 infections are associated with an increased risk of hospital admissions especially in the elderly (age ≥ 65 years) and people with multiple comorbid conditions. (2) Methods: We investigated the effect of additional booster vaccinations following the primary vaccination series of mRNA, inactivated whole virus, or vector vaccines on infections with the SARS-CoV-2 delta variant in the total Hungarian elderly population. The infection, hospital admission, and 28-day all-cause mortality of elderly population was assessed.

Nationwide Effectiveness of First and Second SARS-CoV2 Booster Vaccines During the Delta and Omicron Pandemic Waves in Hungary (HUN-VE 2 Study).

Background: In Hungary, the pandemic waves in late 2021 and early 2022 were dominated by the Delta and Omicron SARS-CoV-2 variants, respectively. Booster vaccines were offered with one or two doses for the vulnerable population during these periods.

Methods And Findings: The nationwide HUN-VE 2 study examined the effectiveness of primary immunization, single booster, and double booster vaccination in the prevention of Covid-19 related mortality during the Delta and Omicron waves, compared to an unvaccinated control population without prior SARS-CoV-2 infection during the same study periods.

Nationwide effectiveness of five SARS-CoV-2 vaccines in Hungary-the HUN-VE study.

Objectives: The Hungarian vaccination campaign was conducted with five different vaccines during the third wave of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in 2021. This observational study (HUN-VE: Hungarian Vaccine Effectiveness) estimated vaccine effectiveness against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection and COVID-19-related mortality in 3.7 million vaccinated individuals.

A nationwide study of the epidemiology of relapsing polychondritis.

Objective: Relapsing polychondritis (RP) is a rare autoimmune inflammatory disease that attacks mainly cartilaginous structures or causes serious damage in proteoglycan-rich structures (the eyes, heart, blood vessels, inner ear). This study shows results regarding the epidemiology, progression, and associations of this highly variable disease by collecting all cases from a 124-million-person-year Central European nationwide cohort.

Methods: We used the Hungarian Health Care Database to identify all persons with possible RP infection.

Biomedical informatics--a confluence of disciplines?

Background: Biomedical informatics is a broad discipline that borrows many methods and techniques from other disciplines.

Objective: To reflect a) on the character of biomedical informatics and to determine whether it is multi-disciplinary or inter-disciplinary; b) on the question whether biomedical informatics is more than the sum of its supporting disciplines and c) on the position of biomedical informatics with respect to related disciplines.

Method: Inviting an international group of experts in biomedical informatics and related disciplines on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Methods of Information in Medicine to present their viewpoints.

Is there a common background to support better healthcare in Central and South East Europe?

The workshop is proposed by the EFMI WG Health Informatics for Interregional Cooperation with the support of the Electronic Healthcare Records WG as a platform for finding common interests regarding improvement of healthcare services for the Central and East European geographical area. The goal is to assess conformance to international standards in healthcare and to find domains in which each country can provide best practices results of using ICT in support of healthcare.

Ontological analysis of SNOMED CT.

Background: SNOMED CT is the most comprehensive medical terminology. However, its use for intelligent services based on formal reasoning is questionable.

Methods: The analysis of the structure of SNOMED CT is based on the formal top-level ontology DOLCE.

Dichotomy - a forgotten ancient principle.

Unlabelled: Dichotomy is an ancient principle of categorisation, where a class is divided into two jointly exhaustive and mutually disjoint categories. The principle as a general requirement was abandoned during the middle. The recent inquiry shows that studying this principle is still worthwhile and in some cases it can be used as a quality assessment tool.

Design principles of DOLCE-based formal representation of ICD10.

The authors present the framework of formal representation of ICD10 based on DOLCE. The goal of the work is to represent the meaning of the categories of the classification systems based on a formal top-level ontology. The ICD categories are described in the space of atomic disease concepts, while the diseases themselves are defined on a pathological basis.

A deployment and Research Roadmap for Semantic Interoperability: the EU semantic health project.

The purpose of this EU funded project is to describe a short and medium term Research and Deployment Roadmap for Semantic Interoperability in e-health. It started by defining 4 levels and 3 dimensions for Semantic Interoperability. The vision is to reconcile the needs for the direct patient care safety, biomedical and clinical research and for public health by the reuse of direct care data: from gene to individuals and populations.

Restructuring the foundational model of anatomy.

The authors present a method to convert the FMA to a description logic-based representation in OWL. The concepts denoting anatomical structures are aligned to the DOLCE formal top-level ontology, and converted to a compact core ontology in the spirit of GALEN. The paper presents the identified problems in the FMA and the main aspects of the re-modelling.

Non Aristotelian categories in medicine.

This paper discusses the representation of medical categories that can not be defined in Aristotelian sense. Two kinds of these categories are mentioned: the prototype and the family resemblance categories. Such categories obviously do exist in medical domain.

GALEN based formal representation of ICD10.

Objectives: The main objective is to create a knowledge-intensive coding support tool for the International Classification of Diseases (ICD10), which is based on formal representation of ICD10 categories. Beyond this task the resulting ontology could be reused in various ways. Decidability is an important issue for computer-assisted coding; consequently the ontology should be represented in description logic.

A pilot ontological model of public health indicators.

Unlabelled: There are various public health databases in the world aiming to provide data to compare health conditions in different countries. Their data sets are more or less overlapping but data from different databases and different countries are hard to compare due to different definitions and interpretations. Our aim was to create a core ontological model that is able to represent public health indicators.

Ontological definition of population for public health databases.

This paper discusses available definitions of population and criticise them against some basic rules of ontology. None of the found definition satisfies the requirement of an ontology that supports building consistent public heath databases. Most definitions define population on territorial bases or as reproductive communities.