Air ambulance service in Norway has been upgraded during the last years. European regulations concerning pilots’ working time and new treatment guidelines/strategies have called for more resources. The objective was to describe and analyse the two supplementary air ambulance [fixed wing (FW) and rotor wing (RW)] alternatives’ activity during the study period (2002-2008). Furthermore we aimed to ...

Air ambulance services in the Arctic have to deal with remote locations, long distances, rough weather conditions and seasonable darkness. Despite these challenges, the people living in the area expect a high quality of specialist health care. The objective of this study was to analyse the air ambulance operations performed in the Norwegian Arctic and study variations in diagnoses and flight patterns ...

<p>Background: Despite numerous studies on prehospital airway management, results are difficult to compare due to inconsistent or heterogeneous data. The objective of this study was to assess advanced airway management from international physician-staffed helicopter emergency medical services. <p>Methods: We collected airway data from 21 helicopter emergency medical services in Australia, England, ...

<p><i>Background and aims - </i>Activated leukocyte cell adhesion molecule (ALCAM) is upregulated during inflammation and involved in transmigration of leukocytes and T-cell activation. We hypothesized that ALCAM might be associated with recurrent events in patients with acute coronary syndromes (ACS). <p><i>Methods - </i>ALCAM was measured in serum obtained on admission, at discharge, 1 month and ...

In 2000 the Scandinavian Neurotrauma Committee published guidelines for safe and cost-effective management of minimal, mild and moderate head injured patients. The aims of this study were to investigate to what extent the head injury population is under the influence of alcohol, and to evaluate whether the physicians’ compliance to the guidelines is affected when patients are influenced by ...

The inflammatory potential of 12 types of alginate-based microspheres was assessed in a human whole blood model. The inflammatory potential could be categorized from low to high based on the four main alginate microsphere types; alginate microbeads, liquefied core poly-l-ornithine (PLO)-containing microcapsules, liquefied core poly-l-lysine (PLL)-containing microcapsules, and solid core PLL-containing ...

This study investigated the overall clinical impact of anti-α- actinin antibodies in patients with pre-selected autoimmune diseases and in a random group of anti-nuclear antibody (ANA)- positive individuals. The relation of anti-α-actinin antibodies with lupus nephritis and anti-double-stranded DNA (anti-dsDNA) antibodies represented a particular focus for the study. Using a cross-sectional ...

Background: Alpha-mannosidosis is caused by mutations in MAN2B1, leading to loss of lysosomal alpha-mannosidase activity. Symptoms include intellectual disabilities, hearing impairment, motor function disturbances, facial coarsening and musculoskeletal abnormalities. <p>Methods: To study the genotype-phenotype relationship for alpha-mannosidosis 66 patients were included. Based on the predicted ...

Background International agreements and domestic legislation regulate genetically modified (GM) crops for environmental release, recognizing that genetic engineering could result in unintended genotypic and phenotypic effects. In that context, omics technologies, which allow comprehensive characterization of the molecular profile of GM crops at all levels, may be used to assess alterations or effects ...

Rewarming from accidental hypothermia is often complicated by hypothermia-induced cardiac dysfunction, calling for immediate pharmacologic intervention. Studies show that although cardiac pharmacologic support is applied when rewarming these patients, a lack of updated treatment recommendations exist. Mainly due to lack of clinical and experimental data, neither of the international guidelines ...