Background: Conventionally, the pregnancy duration is accepted to be 280–282 days. Fetuses determined by ultrasound biometry to be small in early pregnancy, have an increased risk of premature birth. We speculate that the higher rate of preterm delivery in such small fetuses represents a pathological outcome not applicable to physiological pregnancies. Here we test the hypothesis that in ...

Background: Identification of prognostic factors for persistent pain and disability are important for better understanding of the clinical course of chronic unilateral lumbar radiculopathy and to assist clinical decision-making. There is a lack of scientific evidence concerning prognostic factors. The aim of this study was to identify clinically relevant predictors for outcome at 52 weeks. <p>Methods: ...

Background: Oxygen saturation has been shown in risk score models to predict mortality in emergency medicine. The aim of this study was to determine whether low oxygen saturation measured by a single-point measurement by pulse oximetry (SpO2) is associated with increased mortality in the general adult population. <p>Methods: Pulse oximetry was performed in 5,152 participants in a cross-sectional ...

Background: The role of prediabetes as a risk factor for hyperfiltration and albuminuria in persons who do not develop diabetes is unclear. The lack of evidence is mainly due to the difficulty of accurately assessing the glomerular filtration rate (GFR) in the near-normal range of GFR. We investigated whether prediabetes is an independent risk factor for glomerular hyperfiltration and high-normal ...

Background: The American Heart Association has proposed an impact goal for the year 2020 to improve cardiovascular health by 20%. The objectives of the study were to assess the association between the proposed cardiovascular health metric score and incident myocardial infarction (MI) and to estimate the generalized impact fraction (GIF). <p>Methods: The health metric score was derived from ideal ...

Background In non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), nodal metastasis is an adverse prognostic factor. Several mediating factors have been implied in the development of nodal metastases and investigated for predictive and prognostic properties in NSCLC. However, study results differ. In this structured review and meta-analysis we explore the published literature on commonly recognized pathways for ...

Background Though the associations between low serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D) levels and health outcomes such as type 2 diabetes (T2D), myocardial infarction (MI), cancer, and mortality are well-studied, the effect of supplementation with vitamin D is uncertain. This may be related to genetic differences. Thus, rs7968585, a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) of the vitamin D receptor ...