A Dutch paediatric palliative care guideline: a systematic review and recommendations on advance care planning and shared decision-making.

Background: In paediatric palliative care, children with life-threatening and life-limiting conditions, their families, and their health care professionals often face difficult decisions about treatment, goals of care, and delivery of care. Advance care planning and shared decision-making are strategies that can improve quality of care by discussing goals and preferences on future care. In this paper, we provide recommendations that aim to optimise advance care planning and shared decision-making in paediatric palliative care in the Netherlands.

Development and external evaluation of a self-learning auto-segmentation model for Colorectal Cancer Liver Metastases Assessment (COALA).

Objectives: Total tumor volume (TTV) is associated with overall and recurrence-free survival in patients with colorectal cancer liver metastases (CRLM). However, the labor-intensive nature of such manual assessments has hampered the clinical adoption of TTV as an imaging biomarker. This study aimed to develop and externally evaluate a CRLM auto-segmentation model on CT scans, to facilitate the clinical adoption of TTV.

Federated learning as a smart tool for research on infectious diseases.

Background: The use of real-world data has become increasingly popular, also in the field of infectious disease (ID), particularly since the COVID-19 pandemic emerged. While much useful data for research is being collected, these data are generally stored across different sources. Privacy concerns limit the possibility to store the data centrally, thereby also limiting the possibility of fully leveraging the potential power of combined data.

Added value of inflammatory markers to vital signs for predicting mortality in patients with suspected infection: external validation and model development.

It is crucial to identify high-risk patients with infectious conditions for appropriate management. We previously found that inflammatory markers added value to vital signs for predicting mortality in patients with suspected infection. In this study, the aim was to externally validate the added value of the inflammatory markers and to develop a new prediction model.

Menopause age and type and dementia risk: a pooled analysis of 233 802 women.

Objectives: It is not clear whether the association between younger age at menopause and increased risk of dementia is modified by type of menopause. We examined the association of age at menopause or hysterectomy with dementia risk in three groups of women: those with natural menopause, premenopausal bilateral oophorectomy (surgical menopause) or premenopausal hysterectomy (without bilateral oophorectomy).

Study Design: Individual-level data from 233 802 women in five prospective cohort studies (from four countries) were harmonized and pooled.

Association between metabolomics-based biomarker scores and 10-year cognitive decline in men and women. The Doetinchem Cohort Study.

Background: Metabolomic scores based on age (MetaboAge) and mortality (MetaboHealth) are considered indicators of overall health, but their association with cognition in the general population is unknown. Therefore, the association between MetaboAge/MetaboHealth and level and decline in cognition was studied, as were differences between men and women.

Methods: Data of 2821 participants (50% women, age range 45-75) from the Doetinchem Cohort Study was used.

Lessons Learnt from HIV and Noncommunicable Disease Healthcare Integration in Sub-Saharan Africa.

In sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), a rising burden of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) coexists with a persistent high burden of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Integrating care for chronic conditions is potentially beneficial, but the optimal approach remains unclear. By use of a narrative review of 14 recent case studies from different SSA countries, examples of NCD and HIV healthcare integration were described.

Keeping pace in the age of innovation: The perspective of Dutch pharmaceutical science students on the position of machine learning training in an undergraduate curriculum.

Background: Over the years, approaches of the pharmaceutical industry to discover and develop drugs have changed rapidly due to new scientific trends. Among others, they have started to explore Machine Learning (ML), a subset of Artificial Intelligence (AI), as a promising tool to generate new hypotheses regarding drug candidate selections for clinical trials and to predict adverse side effects. Despite these recent developments, the possibilities of ML in pharmaceutical sciences have so far hardly penetrated the training of pharmaceutical science students.

The mediatory role of androgens on sex differences in glucose homeostasis and incidence of type 2 diabetes: the KORA study.

Background: Sex differences exist in type 2 diabetes (T2D), and androgens have been implicated in the etiology of T2D in a sex-specific manner. We therefore aimed to investigate whether androgens play a role in explaining sex differences in glucose homeostasis and incidence of T2D.

Methods: We used observational data from the German population-based KORA F4 study (n = 1975, mean age: 54 years, 41% women) and its follow-up examination KORA FF4 (median follow-up 6.

"Are you listening?": Experiences shared online by family caregivers of patients in the palliative phase during the Covid-19-pandemic.

Objectives: In palliative care, it is important for family caregivers to spend time with and care for the patient, and to receive (in)formal support. These elements were compromised during the Covid-19-pandemic. This study investigates what family caregivers of non-Covid-19-patients in the palliative phase shared online during the first wave of the pandemic, and what their communicative intentions were with posting online.

Methodological quality assessment tools for diagnosis and prognosis research: overview and guidance.

Background And Objectives: Multiple tools exist for assessing the methodological quality of diagnosis and prognosis research. It can be challenging to decide on when to use which tool. We aimed to provide an overview of existing methodological quality assessment (QA) tools for diagnosis and prognosis studies, highlight the overlap and differences among these tools, and to provide guidance for choosing the appropriate tool.

Nutritional quality of diet characterized by the Nutri-Score profiling system and cardiovascular disease risk: a prospective study in 7 European countries.

Background: Nutri-Score is a scientifically validated 5-color front-of-pack nutrition label reflecting the nutrient profile of foods. It has been implemented in several European countries on a voluntary basis, pending the revision of the European labeling regulation. Hence, scientific evidence is needed regarding the ability of the nutrient profile underlying the Nutri-Score (uNS-NPS, 2023-updated version) to characterize healthier foods.

Process Evaluations for the Scale-Up of Complex Interventions - a Scoping Review.

Introduction: Complex health interventions (CHIs) are common in (public) health and social care practice and policy. A process evaluation (PE) is an essential part of designing and testing CHIs and questions what is implemented, the mechanisms of change, and how context affects implementation. The scale-up of CHIs is challenging and heterogeneous, making the accompanying PE unique to the nature of the inquiry.

Incidence of severe and non-severe SARS-CoV-2 infections in children and adolescents: a population-based cohort study using six healthcare databases from Italy, Spain, and Norway.

Unlabelled: We aim to estimate the incidence rates (IRs) of SARS-CoV-2 infections stratified by disease severity and comorbidities in pediatric population and to describe the COVID-19 vaccination coverage in children with and without comorbidities. A population-based cohort study was conducted in 6 electronic healthcare records databases from Italy, Spain, and Norway. The study lasted from 1 January 2020 to the latest databases' available data in each site, i.

Cardiometabolic risk factors are affected by interaction between FADS1 rs174556 variant and dietary vegetable oils in patients with diabetes: a randomized controlled trial.

FADS1 rs174556 polymorphism influences on dietary fats metabolism and type 2 diabetes (T2DM). This study aimed to compare the effect of three oils of sesame, canola and sesame-canola on cardio metabolic factors across genotypes of rs174556 variant in patients with type 2 of diabetes. This study was a randomized triple-blind three-way cross-over clinical trial.