OBJECTIVES To identify underlying causes for failure of medical thesis projects and the constantly high drop-out rate in Germany from the supervisors' perspective and to compare the results with the students' perspective. SETTING Cross-sectional survey. Online questionnaire for survey of medical thesis supervisors among the staff of Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Germany. Published, earl...

OBJECTIVE To study the impact of national economic and human development status on patient profiles and outcomes in the setting of acute coronary syndrome (ACS). METHODS We conducted a retrospective analysis of the Targeted Platelet Inhibition to Clarify the Optimal Strategy to Medically Manage Acute Coronary Syndromes trial (TRILOGY ACS) population (51 countries; 9301 patients). Outcome meas...

BACKGROUND Fetal congenital heart anomalies are the most common congenital anomalies in live births. Fetal echocardiography (FECG) is the only prenatal diagnostic approach used to detect fetal congenital heart disease (CHD). FECG is not widely used, and the antenatal diagnosis rate of CHD varies considerably. Thus, mastering the anatomical characteristics of different kinds of CHD is critical f...

Binary and Millisecond pulsars have a great deal to teach us about stellar evolution and are invaluable tools for tests of relativistic theories of gravity. Our understanding of these objects has been transformed by large-scale surveys that have uncovered a great deal of new objects, exquisitely timed by ever-improving instrumentation. Here we argue that there exists a fundamental relation betw...

BACKGROUND For some patients, positive cancer screening test results can be a stressful experience that can affect future screening compliance and increase the use of health care services unrelated to medically indicated follow-up. METHODS Among 483,216 individuals aged 50 to 75 years who completed a fecal immunochemical test to screen for colorectal cancer at a large integrated health care s...

PURPOSE The NSABP Trial B-31 and NCCTG Trial N9831 (B-31/N9831 trials, Romond et al. in N Engl J Med 353:1673-84, 2005. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa052122; Perez et al. in J Clin Oncol 32:3744-52, 2014. doi:10.1200/JCO.2014.55.5730) established the efficacy of adjuvant trastuzumab for patients with HER2-positive early stage breast cancer. We aimed to estimate the overall survival (OS) and relapse-free su...

OBJECTIVE Ankylosing spondylitis (AS) is a debilitating chronic inflammatory condition with a high degree of familiality (lambda(s) = 82) and heritability (>90%) that primarily affects spinal and sacroiliac joints. Whole genome scans for linkage to AS phenotypes have been conducted, although results have been inconsistent between studies and all have had modest sample sizes. One potential solut...

BACKGROUND Myocardial injury, detected by cardiac troponin I and T (cTnI and cTnT), has been associated with long-term death in the noncardiac human intensive care unit (ICU). HYPOTHESIS Presence of myocardial injury predicts 1-year case fatality in critically ill dogs with systemic inflammation. ANIMALS Thirty-eight dogs with evidence of systemic inflammation and no primary cardiac disease...

BACKGROUND Violence and other traumatic events, as well as psychiatric disorders are frequent in developing countries, but there are few population studies to show the actual impact of traumatic events in the psychiatric morbidity in low and middle-income countries (LMIC). AIMS To study the relationship between traumatic events and prevalence of mental disorders in São Paulo and Rio de Janeir...

BACKGROUND End-Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) is a worldwide public health problem. Currently, many genome-wide association studies have suggested a potential association between human leukocyte antigen (HLA) and ESRD by uncovering a causal relationship between HLA and glomerulonephritis. However, previous studies, which investigated the HLA polymorphism and its association with ESRD, were performe...