BACKGROUND Corticosteroids are a potential risk factor for mortality in patients with perforated diverticular disease, due to blinding of disease severity, hampered wound healing or adrenal insufficiency. We examined mortality in corticosteroid users and non-users among patients with perforated diverticular disease. METHODS A cohort study based on medical databases including all patients ≥18 ...

BACKGROUND We have recently reported that protein phosphate 2A (PP2A) inactivation resulted in increased phosphorylation of the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) c-Jun N-terminal kinase 1 (JNK1) and glucocorticoid receptors (GR) at Ser(226), thereby reducing GR nuclear translocation and causing corticosteroid insensitivity in severe asthmatics. Protein tyrosine phosphatases (PTPs) are als...

BACKGROUND Cardiogenic shock shares with septic shock common hemodynamic features, inflammatory patterns and most likely similar complications such as critical illness-related corticosteroid insufficiency. The aim of this study was to evaluate the prevalence of critical illness-related corticosteroid insufficiency in cardiogenic shock patients and to secondarily assess its prognostic value on 9...

This study describes the clinical characteristics and corticosteroid responsiveness of children with difficult asthma (DA). We hypothesised that complete corticosteroid responsiveness (defined as improved symptoms, normal spirometry, normal exhaled nitric oxide fraction (F(eNO)) and no bronchodilator responsiveness (BDR <12%)) is uncommon in paediatric DA. We report on 102 children, mean+/-sd a...

UNLABELLED BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Corticosteroid treatment is associated with osteonecrosis of the femoral head (ON) in certain patients. The degree of drug sensitivity in general is governed by genetic variation between individuals. We investigated the relationship between ON and the presence of different alleles of the cytochrome P450 gene (CYP3A4), the product of which metabolizes corticoste...

BACKGROUND Plantar fasciitis is a common condition routinely managed by podiatrists in the community and is widely treated conservatively. Two commonly used treatments for plantar fasciitis are customized functional foot orthoses and corticosteroid injections. While common to clinical practice, the evidence base underpinning these treatment strategies is unknown. Therefore, the aim of this syst...

Asthma is the most common chronic paediatric disease treated in the emergency department (ED). Rapid corticosteroid administration is associated with improved outcomes, but our busy ED setting has made it challenging to achieve this goal. Our primary aim was to decrease the time to corticosteroid administration in a large, academic paediatric ED. We conducted an interrupted time series analysis...

Eosinophilic inflammation is thought to be a characteristic feature of asthma rather than COPD. However, studies have shown that a subset of COPD patients with eosinophilic airway inflammation exists, even after the careful exclusion of patients with any features of asthma, such as b-agonist reversibility, bronchial hyperresponsiveness, atopy or a childhood history of asthma [1–4]. Interestingl...

Tuberculosis guidelines identify individuals receiving the corticosteroid drug prednisone (or its equivalent) at a dose of .15 mg?day for 2–4 weeks or more as a group at risk of tuberculosis if infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis [1, 2]. There is an eight-fold increased risk of developing active tuberculosis with such drugs at this dose [3]. However, there is no information on the epidemio...