Novel biomarkers in patients with uncontrolled hypertension with and without kidney damage.

Introduction: Estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) and urine albumin/creatinine ratio (ACR) are insensitive biomarkers for early detection of hypertension-mediated organ damage (HMOD). In this nationwide cross-sectional study, we assessed potential biomarkers for early HMOD in healthy persons and patients with hypertension. We hypothesised that plasma levels of biomarkers: (1) are different between healthy controls and patients with hypertension, (2): can classify patients with hypertension according to the degree of hypertension severity.

Detection of Nonadherence to Antihypertensive Treatment by Measurements of Serum Drug Concentrations.

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Effect of Early Interdisciplinary Rehabilitation for Trauma Patients: A Systematic Review.

Objective: To perform a systematic review to assess the current scientific evidence concerning the effect of EIR for trauma patients with or without an associated traumatic brain injury.

Data Source: We performed a systematic search of several electronic (Ovid MEDLINE, Embase, Cochrane Library Central Register of Controlled Trials, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health, and SveMed+) and 2 clinical trial registers (clinicaltrials.gov and International Clinical Trials Registry Platform).

Cardiovascular outcomes at recommended blood pressure targets in middle-aged and elderly patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus compared to all middle-aged and elderly hypertensive study patients with high cardiovascular risk.

Purpose: Event-based clinical outcome trials have shown limited evidence to support guidelines recommendations to lower blood pressure (BP) to <130/80 mmHg in middle-aged and elderly hypertensive patients with diabetes mellitus or with general high cardiovascular (CV) risk. We addressed this issue by post-hoc analysing the risk of CV events in patients who participated in the Valsartan Antihypertensive Long-term Use Evaluation (VALUE) trial and compared the hypertensive patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus with all high-risk hypertensive patients.

Materials And Methods: Patients were divided into 4 groups according to the proportion of on-treatment visits before the occurrence of an event (<25% to ≥75%) in which BP was reduced to <140/90 or <130/80 mmHg.

Cardiovascular outcomes at recommended blood pressure targets in middle-aged and elderly patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus and hypertension.

Purpose: Available data of event-based clinical outcomes trials show that little evidence supports the guidelines recommendations to lower blood pressure (BP) to <130/80 mmHg in middle-aged and elderly people with type 2 diabetes mellitus and hypertension. We addressed this issue by post-hoc analysing the risk of cardiovascular (CV) events in mostly elderly high-risk hypertensive patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus participating in the Valsartan Antihypertensive Long-term Use Evaluation (VALUE) trial.

Material And Methods: Patients ( = 5250) were divided into 4 groups according to the proportion of on-treatment visits before the occurrence of an event (<25% to ≥ 75%) in which BP was reduced to <140/90 or <130/80 mmHg.

Start Spreading the News: A Comparative Experiment on the Effects of Populist Communication on Political Engagement in Sixteen European Countries.

Although populist communication has become pervasive throughout Europe, many important questions on its political consequences remain unanswered. First, previous research has neglected the differential effects of populist communication on the Left and Right. Second, internationally comparative studies are missing.

Parent Training for Preschool ADHD in Routine, Specialist Care: A Randomized Controlled Trial.

Objective: Parent training is recommended for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in preschool children. Evidence-based interventions are important, but only if they produce better outcomes than usual care.

Method: The authors conducted a multicenter, 2-arm, parallel-group, randomized controlled trial in routine specialist ADHD clinics in the Danish Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services.

National guidelines for evaluating pain-Patients' legal right to prioritised health care at multidisciplinary pain clinics in Norway implemented 2009.

Background All nations are posed with the challenge of deciding how to allocate limited health care resources. A Patients' Rights Law from 1999 gives patients in Norway with a serious health condition, for which there is efficacious and cost-effective treatment, a legal right to receive health care from the National Health Care system. Methods Recently national guidelines have been produced for implementing these legal rights within 32 fields of specialist health care.

Clinical diagnostic accuracy of acute colonic diverticulitis in patients admitted with acute abdominal pain, a receiver operating characteristic curve analysis.

Purpose: The study investigated the capability of clinical findings, temperature, C-reactive protein (CRP), and white blood cell (WBC) count to discern patients with acute colonic diverticulitis from all other patients admitted with acute abdominal pain.

Methods: The probability of acute diverticulitis was assessed by the examining doctor, using a scale from 0 (zero probability) to 10 (100 % probability). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were used to assess the clinical diagnostic accuracy of acute colonic diverticulitis in patients admitted with acute abdominal pain.

Heterotopic ossification and clinical outcome in nonconstrained cervical arthroplasty 2 years after surgery: the Norwegian Cervical Arthroplasty Trial (NORCAT).

Purpose: Heterotopic ossification is a phenomenon in cervical arthroplasty. Previous reports have mainly focused on various semiconstrained devices and only a few publications have focused on ossification around devices that are nonconstrained. The purpose of this study was to assess the occurrence of heterotopic ossification around a nonconstrained cervical device and how it affects clinical outcome 2 years after surgery.

Impaired Right Ventricular Function in Long-Term Lymphoma Survivors.

Background: Cardiotoxicity from anthracyclines or cardiac radiation therapy is detrimental to left ventricular (LV) function. However, the long-term effects on right ventricular (RV) performance are largely unknown. The aim of this study was to investigate the long-term impact of cardiotoxic treatment on RV function among adult cancer survivors.

Eliciting Patient Risk Willingness in Clinical Consultations as a Means of Improving Decision-Making of Aortic Valve Replacement.

Background: Treatment decisions for aortic valve replacement (AVR) should be sensitive to patient preferences. However, we lack knowledge of patient preferences and how to obtain them.

Methods And Results: We assessed the mortality risk patients were willing to accept when undergoing AVR by using the Standard Gamble method and aimed to show how this risk willingness was affected by level of disease burden.

Valvular Dysfunction in Lymphoma Survivors Treated With Autologous Stem Cell Transplantation: A National Cross-Sectional Study.

Objectives: This study assessed the prevalence and associated risk factors for valvular dysfunction (VD) observed in adult lymphoma survivors (LS) after autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (auto-HCT), and to determine whether anthracycline-containing chemotherapy (ACCT) alone in these patients is associated with VD.

Background: The prevalence of and risk factors for VD in LS after auto-HCT is unknown. Anthracyclines may induce heart failure, but any association with VD is not well-defined.

The Neck Disability Index (NDI) and its correlation with quality of life and mental health measures among patients with single-level cervical disc disease scheduled for surgery.

Background: The Neck Disability Index (NDI) is widely used as a self-rated disability score in patients with cervical radiculopathy. The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether the NDI score correlated with other assessments of quality of life and mental health in a specific group of patients with single-level cervical disc disease and corresponding radiculopathy.

Methods: One hundred thirty-six patients were included in a prospective, randomized controlled clinical multicenter study on one-level anterior cervical discectomy with arthroplasty (ACDA) versus one-level anterior cervical discectomy with fusion (ACDF).

Heart Failure and Asymptomatic Left Ventricular Systolic Dysfunction in Lymphoma Survivors Treated With Autologous Stem-Cell Transplantation: A National Cross-Sectional Study.

Purpose: We aimed to determine the prevalence of left ventricular systolic dysfunction (LVSD), including symptomatic (ie, heart failure [HF]) and asymptomatic LVSD in adult lymphoma survivors (LSs) after autologous hematopoietic stem-cell transplantation (auto-HCT) and to identify risk factors for LVSD in this population.

Patients And Methods: All LSs treated with auto-HCT as adults in Norway from 1987 to 2008 were eligible for this national cross-sectional study. Asymptomatic LVSD was defined as left ventricular ejection fraction less than 50% by echocardiography, and HF was defined according to current recommendations.

Cardiac function assessed by exercise echocardiography on the first morning after coronary artery bypass grafting.

Cardiac surgery patients are urged to resume light physical activity on the first postoperative day, even if cardiac function may not have recovered fully after the operation. To elucidate the postoperative recovery process, we examined cardiac surgery patients with exercise echocardiography before and on the first day after the operation. Patients undergoing on-pump coronary artery bypass grafting were examined with echocardiography during semirecumbent cycle exercise.

Rectal cancer in the young patient.

Purpose: The purpose of this national study was to evaluate the results of treatment for young rectal cancer patients.

Methods: This prospective study from the Norwegian Rectal Cancer Project includes all 2,283 patients younger than aged 70 years with adenocarcinoma of the rectum from November 1993 to December 1999. Patients younger than aged 40 years (n = 45), 40 to 44 years (n = 87), 45 to 49 years (n = 153), and 50 to 69 years (n = 1998) were compared for patient and tumor characteristics and five-year overall survival.

Abnormal umbilical-portal-hepatic venous system in two siblings: a sign for congenital cholangiodysplasia.

We report on two siblings who presented prenatally with a ductus venosus (DV) that was abnormally located between the middle hepatic vein (mHV) and the proximal inferior vena cava (IVC), and with hepatomegaly. The first case presented with polyhydramnios at 33 weeks and therapeutic amniocentesis resulted in premature delivery soon after admission. The neonate died 19 days later and autopsy revealed congenital cholangiodysplasia.

Transanal excision vs. major surgery for T1 rectal cancer.

Purpose: The purpose of this national study was to examine the long-term results of transanal excision compared with major surgery of T1 rectal cancer.

Methods: This prospective study from the Norwegian Rectal Cancer Project included all 291 patients with a T1M0 tumor within 15 cm from the anal verge treated by anterior resection, abdominoperineal resection, Hartmann's procedure, or transanal excision in the period from November 1993 to December 1999.

Results: Two hundred fifty-six patients were treated by major surgery and 35 patients by transanal excision.

Postoperative morbidity and recurrence after local excision of rectal adenomas and rectal cancer by transanal endoscopic microsurgery.

Objective: Tumours in the middle and upper part of the rectum are not easy accessible to local excision. Transanal endoscopic microsurgery (TEM) has been recommended for excision of sessile adenomas in the middle and upper part of the rectum, and for small cancers in patients not fit for major surgery. The purpose of this study was to evaluate postoperative morbidity and local recurrence after TEM.

Features indicative of cervical abnormality. A factor to be reckoned with in clinical headache work and research?

The current criteria for cervicogenic headache (CEH) contain an anamnestic and a physical examination part. The latter consists of: 1) range of motion in the cervical spine (1+); 2) mechanical precipitation of head pain (uppermost score: 1.5+).

Headache and the lower cervical spine: long-term, postoperative follow-up after decompressive neck surgery.

A retrospective search for headache sufferers was conducted among patients operated on for cervicobrachialgia, and the operative results were evaluated. We also tried to classify the preoperative headache according to current headache classification systems. A total of 187 patients were operated on with Smith-Robinson's method, or by "simple" foraminectomy/ facetectomy.

Cervicogenic headache: the importance of sticking to the criteria.

Cervicogenic headache (CEH) is a headache, but its origin is in the neck. Recently, two cases of intracranial tumour, which unfortunately were originally diagnosed as CEH, were published. The authors felt that this sequence of events demonstrates the insufficiency of the current CEH criteria.

Neuropsychological impairments in patients with schizophrenia: stability and prediction of outcome.

Objective: To assess neuropsychological impairments among fairly young schizophrenic patients over time, and relations between impairment and symptoms, drug type and dose.

Method: Clinical and neuropsychological data for 29 schizophrenic patients have been published earlier. Twenty of these patients were retested after 3 years using the same methods.