BACKGROUND Antibiotic-associated diarrhoea can be attributed in part to imbalances in intestinal microflora. Therefore, probiotic preparations are used to prevent this diarrhoea. However, although several trials have been conducted, no conclusive evidence has been found of the efficacy of different preparations, e.g. Lactobacillus spp. and Saccharomyces spp. AIM To conduct a meta-analysis of ...

BACKGROUND Corticosteroids are first-line drugs for the treatment of a variety of conditions in women of childbearing age. Information regarding human pregnancy outcome with corticosteroids is limited. METHODS We collected prospectively and followed up 184 women exposed to prednisone in pregnancy and 188 pregnant women who were counseled by Motherisk for nonteratogenic exposure. The primary o...

The purpose of this note is to introduce practicing epidemiologist to a robust cluster adjustment of the Mantel Haenszel Test Statistic and Odds Ratio. We will discuss the applicability of the adjustment and also its computation. Throughout we will use data from the file SDZ1.rec which comes with the CIETmap analysis software. We start by giving a short introduction to odds ratio estimation and...

We describe a copy-number variant (CNV) for which deletion alleles confer a protective affect against rheumatoid arthritis (RA). This CNV reflects net unit deletions and expansions to a normal two-unit tandem duplication located on human chr12p13.31, a region with conserved synteny to the rat RA susceptibility quantitative trait loci Oia2. Genotyping, using the paralogue ratio test and SNP inte...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Prognostic significance of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) in intracranial hemorrhage (ICH) is unclear. The objective of this study was to determine the association between LDL-C and mortality in ICH. METHODS Consecutive patients (n=88) presenting with ICH were included in the study. Lipid profile was obtained during the first hours after admission. We analy...

SETTING: Host genetic risk factors influence the susceptibility to tuberculosis (TB). There is ample evidence supporting the involvement of toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) in mycobacterial infection. OBJECTIVE: To study the relationship between the TLR4 gene and TB susceptibility in Sudanese. DESIGN: A case-control study was conducted by recruiting 207 patients with pulmonary TB and 395 healthy con...

The risk di$erence is frequently used as a measure of the actual gain in the success rate between two treatments within a center (i.e. hospital). Interest is devoted to combining the risk di$erence across several centers under homogeneity but allowing for baseline-risk heterogeneity in each of the treatment arms. The purpose is to compare the e5ciency of six estimators for the common risk di$er...

s | 83 included) and Mantel Haenszel-Risk Ratio of 1.31, 95% CI=1.01 to 1.69 (p=0.04) favouring active treatment over placebo according to response rates (12 studies included). Trials were patients merely had BLT as active treatment indicated a higher effect size (Hedges`s g= -0.51, 95%CI =-0.70 to -0.32 and p=0.001) than studies with concomitant psychopharmacological treatment (Hedges`s g= -0....

Differential item functioning (DIF), as an assessment tool, has been widely used in quantitative psychology, educational measurement, business management, and insurance and healthcare industries. The purpose of DIF analyses is to detect response differences of items in questionnaires, rating scales, or tests across different subgroups (e.g., gender), while controlling for ability level. There a...