Usage of personal music players in adolescents and its association with noise-induced hearing loss: A cross-sectional analysis of Ohrkan cohort study data.

Objective: To describe personal music player (PMP) usage among adolescents, sociodemographic determinants and association with audiometric notches.

Design: Audiometric evaluation to assess hearing status, and standardized questionnaires to evaluate PMP listening behaviors, leisure noise exposures and self-reported hearing loss symptoms. Sociodemographic information was collected using a parent questionnaire.

Total leisure noise exposure and its association with hearing loss among adolescents.

Objective: To investigate total leisure noise exposure among adolescents and to assess its association with hearing.

Design: Based on self-reported time spent on 19 leisure activities and associated mean sound pressure levels reported in the literature, total leisure noise exposure was evaluated and compared to noise at work limits (> 85 dB(A) = hazardous) in a cross-sectional survey. Tympanometry and pure-tone audiometry was performed in sound isolated rooms.

Outcomes of AV Fistulas and AV Grafts after Interventional Stent-Graft Deployment in Haemodialysis Patients.

Purpose: The study was designed to assess outcomes of arteriovenous (AV) accesses after interventional stent-graft deployment in haemodialysis patients.

Materials And Methods: 63 haemodialysis patients with 66 AV fistulas and AV grafts were treated by interventional stent-graft deployment from 2006 to 2012 at our hospital. Data of these patients were retrospectively analysed for location of deployed stent-grafts, occurrence and location of (re-)stenosis and (re-)thrombosis.

Organochlorine compounds, nitro musks and perfluorinated substances in breast milk - results from Bavarian Monitoring of Breast Milk 2007/8.

The aim of the Bavarian Monitoring of Breast Milk (BAMBI) project was to examine 10 organochlorine pesticides (OPs), 3 nitro musks, 6 indicator polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), 7 polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins (PCDDs), 10 polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDFs), 12 dioxin-like PCBs (dl-PCBs) and several perfluorinated alkyl compounds in breast milk samples. A total of 516 breast milk samples were collected from seven regions in Bavaria and were analyzed by means of GC/ECD, GC/HRMS, and LC/MS-MS. Concerning the OPs, only hexachlorobenzene and a metabolite of DDT, 1,1-dichloro-2,2-bis(4-chlorophenyl) ethylene (p,p'-DDE), could be quantified in all samples (median: 16 ngg(-1) lipid and 63 ngg(-1) lipid, respectively).

[Hearing loss in adolescents due to leisure noise. The OHRKAN study].

Alarming reports have been published about hearing loss in adolescents, and increasing leisure time noise exposure has been blamed. If the exposure limits from the Noise at Work Regulations are applied, discotheque music as well as music from portable music players are associated with the risk of hearing loss. The empirical evidence for this association, however, is not sufficient.