design (3). We can imagine that some statistical procedure more powerful than standard Mantel-Haenszel and Miettinen tests might narrow the confidence intervals a bit, but it would not alter these point estimates by much. Adjustment of the RR's for tobacco use provides an adequate test for confounding. With subjects categorized either as non-, ex-, or current cigarette smokers or as pipe or cig...

AIM In order to assess whether the use of metronidazole during pregnancy is associated with a higher risk of congenital malformations, a meta-analysis was conducted. METHODS All epidemiological studies (cohort and case-control) which estimate risk of congenital malformations after exposure to metronidazole during early pregnancy were included in the meta-analysis. To obtain a summary odds rat...

Methods We used literature search of MEDLINE, Current Contents, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Google Scholar, Science Direct, and HighWire Press to identify relevant RCTs for our meta-analysis. We used the following search strategy and MeSH/key terms: (prone OR prone ventilation) AND (ARDS OR acute respiratory distress syndrome). We limited our search to clinical trials. No li...

There has long been interest in determining if mass ivermectin administration for onchocerciasis has 'unknowingly' interrupted lymphatic filariasis (LF) transmission where the endemicity of the two diseases' overlaps. We studied 11 communities in central Nigeria entomologically for LF by performing mosquito dissections on Anopheline LF vectors. Six of the communities studied were located within...

SUMMARY Sequencing pooled DNA samples (Pool-Seq) is the most cost-effective approach for the genome-wide comparison of population samples. Here, we introduce PoPoolation2, the first software tool specifically designed for the comparison of populations with Pool-Seq data. PoPoolation2 implements a range of commonly used measures of differentiation (F(ST), Fisher's exact test and Cochran-Mantel-H...

tal groups in the primary outcome measures (table): change of diabetes treatment (36% v 42%), lipid lowering drugs (9% v 12%), or blood pressure drugs (10% v 16%) and referral to dietician (13% v 10%). There were no differences in other interventions between the control and experimental groups. Among high risk patients, however, those in the experimental group were more likely to be prescribed ...

The discriminatory power of ten factors has been explored in relation to the presence or absence of muscular rigidity in patients with Huntington's disease. The sex and neurological sign of an affected parent were the only two significant determinants of rigidity or choreoathetosis in offspring. It was shown, using the Mantel-Haenszel method of adjusting for confounding variables that the risk ...

Sixteen children aged under 5 years with chronic asthma completed a double-blind crossover trial of treatment with oral choline theophyllinate (6.7 mg/kg four times daily) and nebulised sodium cromoglycate (20 mg four times daily). The trial comprised three 8-week treatment periods during which active sodium cromoglycate, active choline theophyllinate, and placebo were given in random order. Sy...

A case-control design involving only cases may be used when brief exposure causes a transient change in risk of a rare acute-onset disease. The design resembles a retrospective nonrandomized crossover study but differs in having only a sample of the base population-time. The average incidence rate ratio for a hypothesized effect period following the exposure is estimable using the Mantel-Haensz...

On February 13, 2002, a public health center in Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan, was notified that many individuals living at the Japan Maritime Self-Defence Force base had symptoms resembling those of food poisoning. Self-administered questionnaires requesting information regarding meal consumption and symptoms were distributed to all 281 members at the base. A case of the illness was defined as a...