Objective To assess whether decompression alone is non-inferior to decompression with instrumented fusion five years after primary surgery in patients with degenerative lumbar spondylolisthesis.<p> <p>Design Five year follow-up of a randomised, multicentre, non-inferiority trial (Nordsten-DS). <p>Setting 16 public orthopaedic and neurosurgical clinics in Norway. <p>Participants Patients ...

Background - Frailty is strongly correlated with mortality in intensive care unit patients, yet routine screening among intensive care patients is rarely performed.<p> <p>The aim of this study is to assess frailty and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in patients before intensive care admission and to compare this with outcomes after 3 and 12-months. The Clinical Frailty Scale and EQ-5D-5L ...

Natural Language Processing (NLP) methods have shown promise for the assessment of formal thought disorder, a hallmark feature of schizophrenia in which disturbances to the structure, organization, or coherence of thought can manifest as disordered or incoherent speech. We investigated the suitability of modern Large Language Models (LLMs - e.g., GPT-3.5, GPT-4, and Llama 3) to predict expert-generated ...

Purpose: The SWENOTECA-MIR prospective multicenter study aims to assess the clinical value of miR-371a-3p as a novel marker in metastatic germ cell tumor patients undergoing retroperitoneal lymph node dissection (RPLND), to predict the presence of viable residual tumor.<p> <p>Materials and Methods: A total of 114 patients (86 nonseminomas, 28 seminomas) who underwent surgery for presumed metastatic ...

Background - Early-life antibiotic exposure is disproportionately high compared to the burden of culture-proven early-onset sepsis (CP-EOS). We assessed the contribution of culture-negative cases to the overall antibiotic exposure in the first postnatal week.<p> <p>Methods - We conducted a retrospective analysis across eleven countries in Europe, North America, and Australia. All late-preterm and ...

The goal of this paper is to provide a useful desktop reference for the imaging of suspected child abuse with clear, age-specific pathways for appropriate evidence-based imaging and follow-up.<p> <p>We aim to provide a road map for the imaging evaluation and follow-up of this important and vulnerable cohort of patients presenting with signs and symptoms concerning for inflicted injury. As the ...

Aims Atrial fibrillation (AF) is a common arrhythmia, and many cases of AF may be undiagnosed. Whether screening for AF and subsequent treatment if AF is detected can improve long-term outcome remains an unsettled question. The primary aim of the NORwegian atrial fibrillation self-SCREENing (NORSCREEN) trial is to assess whether self-screening for AF with continuous electrocardiogram (ECG) for 3–7 ...

Background - There is a lack of knowledge regarding the functional outcomes of patients after trauma. Remote areas in Norway has been associated with an increased risk of trauma-related mortality. However, it is unknown how this might influence trauma-related morbidity. The aim of this study was to assess the functional outcomes of patients in the Norwegian trauma population and the relationship ...

Background. The complement system, an upstream recognition system of innate immunity, is activated upon SARS-CoV-2 infection. To gain a deeper understanding of the extent and duration of this activation, we investigated complement activation profiles during the acute phase of COVID-19, its persistence post-recovery and dynamic changes in relation to disease severity.<p> <p>Methods. Serial ...

Aim: Sacral neuromodulation (SNM) is approved for the treatment of faecal incontinence (FI) in a two-stage technique. With standardized implantation, approximately 90% of pa tients undergo successful Stage I operation and proceed to a permanent implant (Stage II). The aim of this work was to explore the feasibility of SNM as a one-stage procedure and report the 24-week efficacy.<p> <p>Method: ...