<p><i>Objective - </i>To assess the efficacy of three months of antibiotic treatment compared with placebo in patients with chronic low back pain, previous disc herniation, and vertebral endplate changes (Modic changes). <p><i>Design - </i>Double blind, parallel group, placebo controlled, multicentre trial. <p><i>Setting - </i>Hospital outpatient clinics at six hospitals in Norway. <p><i>Participants ...

<i>Importance</i> - Aortic valve stenosis (AS) is the most common valve disease. Elevated levels of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol are a risk factor; however, lipid-lowering treatment seems not to prevent progression of AS. The importance of LDL cholesterol in the development of AS thus remains unclear. People with familial hypercholesterolemia (FH) have elevated LDL cholesterol levels ...

A bronchopleural fistula (BF) is a life-threatening complication. Optimal management of a BF is still debated although surgery remains the preferred treatment. Usually, the fistula is a result of inadequate healing at the bronchial stump after pneumonectomy. Successful closure of a BF after pneumonectomy depends on evacuation of empyema, coverage of the suture line after fistula closure with ...

<i>Importance</i> - The neonatal early-onset sepsis (EOS) calculator is a clinical risk stratification tool increasingly used to guide the use of empirical antibiotics for newborns. Evidence on the effectiveness and safety of the EOS calculator is essential to inform clinicians considering implementation.<p> <p><i>Objective</i> - To assess the association between management of neonatal EOS ...

<i>Background</i> - The first 1000 days of life, from conception to the second birthday, offer a unique window of opportunity for optimal growth, critical for future health. The primary aim of this study was to analyze growth of children between 12 and 24 months age in Tanzanian children, and to explore possible predictors for growth.<p> <p><i>Methods</i> - Observational, cross-sectional study ...

<i>Objective</i> - It is currently unknown whether osteoarthritis (OA) is inherited mainly from the mother, father, or both. This study was undertaken to explore the effect of maternal and paternal factors on hip, knee, and hand OA in offspring.<p> <p><i>Methods</i> - Participants from the Musculoskeletal Pain in Ullensaker Study (MUST) (69% female; mean ± SD age 64 ± 9 years) and a Norwegian ...

Acoustic analysis of vocal expression offers a potentially inexpensive, unobtrusive, and highly sensitive biobehavioral measure of serious mental illness (SMI)-related issues. Despite literature documenting its use for understanding SMI, prior studies have largely ignored that vocal expression is highly dynamic within individuals over time. We employed ambulatory vocal assessment from SMI outpatients ...

<i>Presentation of Case</i> – Ane Skaare Sjulstad, MD, Adult Neurology Resident, Nordland Hospital, Bodø, Norway A 48‐year‐old man with no previous medical history suddenly experienced severe intense retro‐bulbar pain of pulsating character on the right side, and was seen in the emergency department 7 hours later. He was then alert and oriented, but in excruciating pain. There was no neck stiffness ...

<i>Background</i>: The actions of caffeine as an antagonist of adenosine receptors have been extensively studied, and there is no doubt that both daily and sporadic dietary consumption of caffeine has substantial biological effects on the nervous system. Caffeine influences headaches, the migraine syndrome in particular, but how is unclear.<p> <p><i>Materials and Methods</i>: This is a narrative ...

Evaluating patients’ verbal fluency by counting the number of unique words (e.g., animals) produced in a short-period (e.g., 1–3 min) is one of the most widely employed cognitive tests in psychiatric research. We introduce new methods to analyze fluency output that leverage modern computational language technology. This enables moving beyond simple word counts to charting the temporal dynamics of ...