Plos One
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The risk of Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) following the United States' 1976 swine flu vaccination campaign in the USA led to enhanced active surveillance during the pandemic influenza (A(H1N1)pdm09) immunization campaign. This study aimed to estimate the risk of GBS following influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 vaccination. ⋯ This study illustrates the potential of conducting European collaborative vaccine safety studies. The main, fully adjusted analysis, showed that the RI of GBS was not significantly elevated after influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 vaccination (RI = 1.4 (95% CI: 0.7-2.8). Based on the upper limits of the pooled estimate we can rule out with 95% certainty that the number of excess GBS cases after influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 vaccination would be more than 3 per million vaccinated.
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Approximately 60% of morphine is glucuronidated to morphine-3-glucuronide (M3G) which may aggravate preexisting pain conditions. Accumulating evidence indicates that M3G signaling through neuronal Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) may be central to this proalgesic signaling event. These events are known to include elevated neuronal excitability, increased voltage-gated sodium (NaV) current, tactile allodynia and decreased opioid analgesic efficacy. ⋯ In contrast to either drug alone at PID28, the combination of morphine and CBZ completely attenuated tactile hyperalgesia in the rodent TNI model. The basis for the potentiation of morphine in combination with CBZ may be due to the effects of a latent upregulation of NaV1.7 in the DRG following TNI. Taken together, our observations demonstrate a potential therapeutic use of morphine and CBZ as a combinational treatment for neuropathic pain.
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Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is the leading cause of lower respiratory tract infections in children and is responsible for as many as 199,000 childhood deaths annually worldwide. To support the development of viral therapeutics and vaccines for RSV, a human adult experimental infection model has been established. In this report, we describe the provenance and sequence of RSV Memphis-37, the low-passage clinical isolate used for the model's reproducible, safe, experimental infections of healthy, adult volunteers. ⋯ Human T- cell epitope sequences previously defined by in vitro studies were observed to be closely matched between Memphis-37 and the laboratory strain RSV A2. Memphis-37 sequences provide baseline data with which to assess: (i) virus heterogeneity that may be evident following virus infection/transmission, (ii) the efficacy of candidate RSV vaccines and therapeutics in the experimental infection model, and (iii) the potential emergence of escape mutants as a consequence of experimental drug treatments. Memphis-37 is a valuable tool for pre-clinical research, and to expedite the clinical development of vaccines, therapeutic immunomodulatory agents, and other antiviral drug strategies for the protection of vulnerable populations against RSV disease.
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Lung-dominant connective tissue disease (LD-CTD) is a new concept for classifying the subset of patients with interstitial pneumonia who have clinical features suggesting an associated CTD, but whose features fall short of a clear diagnosis of CTD under the current rheumatologic classification systems. The impact of mean pulmonary arterial pressure (MPAP) in LD-CTD has not been sufficiently elucidated. ⋯ Higher MPAP and lower %FVC at the initial evaluation were significant independent prognostic factors of LD-CTD. MPAP evaluation provides additional information of disease status and will help physicians to predict mortality in LD-CTD.
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Historical Article
Climate change and macro-economic cycles in pre-industrial europe.
Climate change has been proven to be the ultimate cause of social crisis in pre-industrial Europe at a large scale. However, detailed analyses on climate change and macro-economic cycles in the pre-industrial era remain lacking, especially within different temporal scales. Therefore, fine-grained, paleo-climate, and economic data were employed with statistical methods to quantitatively assess the relations between climate change and agrarian economy in Europe during AD 1500 to 1800. ⋯ These findings merely reflect the general interactions between climate change and macro-economic cycles at the large spatial region with a long-term study period. The findings neither illustrate individual incidents that can temporarily distort the agrarian economy nor explain some specific cases. In the study, the scale thinking in the analysis is raised as an essential methodological issue for the first time to interpret the associations between climatic impact and macro-economy in the past agrarian society within different temporal scales.