Report of work on ankylosing spondylitics in Hong Kong, 1982-1985

published_or_final_versionC Medico-social Problems in Ankylosing Spondylitics R. Leung, P. Leung, E. Ho Leung, P. Ho, E. 53ii O.P.L.L. and A.S. With Traumatic Tetraparesis E. Ho, J.C.Y. Leong Ho, E. Leong, J. C. Y.i Cauda Equina Syndrome E. Ho, M. Yuen, L. Ma, L.C.S. Hsu Ho, E. Yeun, M. Ma, L. Hsu, L. C. S.E Study On Pain in Ankylosing Spondylitics C. Hsu Hsu, C. 65D Clinical Psychological Problems in Ankylosing Spondylitics P. Leung, P. Lee, F. L. Mak, E. Ho Leung, P. Lee, P. Mak, F. L. Ho, E. 57B Physiotherapy in Ankylosing Spondylitics D. Wong, J.M. Bourne, E. Ho Wong, D. Bourne, J. M. Ho, E. 51A Occupational Therapy in Ankylosing Spondylitics K. Chan, E. Ho Chan, K. Ho, E. 47G Neurological Complications in Ankylosing Spondylitis 37F Family Screening in Ankylosing Spondylitis in Hong Kong Chinese E. Ho Ho, E. 35E Radiological Study of Spinal Pseudoarthrosis in Ankylosing Spondylitis F. L. Chan, E. Ho, L.C.S. Hsu, D. Fang, J.C.Y. Leong Chan, F. L. Ho, E. Hsu, L. C. S. Fang, D. Leong, J. C. Y. 23D Radiological Study of the Ossification Pattern in the Spine Affected By Ankylosing Spondylitis E. Ho, F. L. Chan, L.C.S. Hsu, J.C.Y. Leong, A.C.M.C. Yau Ho, E. Chan, F. L. Hsu, L. C. S. Leong, J. C. Y. Yau, A. C. M. C. 19C Total Hip Arthroplasty in Ankylosing Spondylitis - a Review of 40 Cases E. Ho, D. Fang, L.C.S. Hsu, J.C.Y. Leong Ho, E. Fang, D. Hsu, L. C. S. Leong, J. C. Y. 11B Hla B27 Testing in Hong Kong Chinese E. Ho, S.C.F. Yuen, L.C.S. Hsu, S.P. Chow, J.C.Y. Leong Ho, E. Yuen, S. C. F. Hsu, L. C. S. CHOW. S. P. Leong, J. C. Y. 7A Clinical Review of 100 Cases of Ankylosing Spondylitics in Hong Kong Chinese E. Ho, L.C.S. Hsu, S.P. Chow, J.C.Y. Leong Ho, E. Hsu, L. C. S. Chow, S. P. Leong, J. C. Y. 1V The Future of Ankylosing Spondylitics in Hong Kong E. Ho Ho, E. 117IV The Ankylosing Spondylitis PHAB Club in Hong Kong M. B. Lee, E. Ho Lee, M. B. Ho, E. 115III Paramedical Management ReviewII Medical and Surgical AspectsPermission Had Been Obtained From the Publishers to Include These Manuscripts in This ReportManuscript IIG (ii) Had Been Accepted For Publication in SpineManuscripts IIA, IIB, IID Had Been Published/accepted For Publication in the Journal of Western Pacific Orthopaedic AssociationManuscript IIID Had Been Published in the Journal of the Hong Kong Psychiatric AssociationPreface E. Ho Ho, E.I Foreword M.B. Lee Lee, M. B

Adverse events of special interest following the use of BNT162b2 in adolescents: a population-based retrospective cohort study

Accruing evidence suggests an increased risk of myocarditis in adolescents from messenger RNA COVID-19 vaccines. However, other potential adverse events remain under-researched. We conducted a retrospective cohort study of adolescents aged 12–18 with a territory-wide electronic healthcare database of the Hong Kong population linked with population-based vaccination records and supplemented with age- and sex-specific population numbers. Two age- and sex-matched retrospective cohorts were formed to observe 28 days following the first and second doses of BNT162b2 and estimate the age- and sex-adjusted incidence rate ratios between the vaccinated and unvaccinated. Thirty AESIs adapted from the World Health Organization’s Global Advisory Committee on Vaccine Safety were examined. Eventually, the first-dose cohort comprised 274,881 adolescents (50.25% received the first dose) and the second-dose cohort 237,964 (50.29% received the second dose). Ninety-four (34.2 per 100,000 persons) adolescents in the first-dose cohort and 130 (54.6 per 100,000 persons) in the second-dose cohort experienced ≥1 AESIs. There were no statistically significant differences in the risk of any AESI associated with BNT162b2 except myocarditis [first-dose cohort: incidence rate ratio (IRR) = 9.15, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.14–73.16; second-dose cohort: IRR = 29.61, 95% CI 4.04–217.07] and sleeping disturbances/disorders after the second dose (IRR = 2.06, 95% CI 1.01–4.24). Sensitivity analysis showed that, with myocarditis excluded as AESIs, no significantly elevated risk of AESIs as a composite outcome associated with vaccination was observed (P = 0.195). To conclude, the overall absolute risk of AESIs was low with no evidence of an increased risk of AESIs except myocarditis and sleeping disturbances/disorders

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

Effectiveness of BNT162b2 and CoronaVac vaccines in preventing SARS-CoV-2 Omicron infections, hospitalizations, and severe complications in the pediatric population in Hong Kong: a case-control study

ABSTRACTSevere COVID-19 appears to be disproportionately more common in children and adolescents since the emergence of Omicron. More evidence regarding vaccine effectiveness (VE) is urgently needed to assist policymakers in making decisions and minimize vaccine hesitancy among the public. This was a case-control study in the pediatric population using data extracted from the electronic health records database in Hong Kong. Individuals aged 3–17 with COVID-19 confirmed by polymerase chain reaction were included in the study. Each case was matched with up to 10 controls based on age, gender, and index date (within 3 calendar days). The VE of BNT162b2 and CoronaVac in preventing COVID-19, hospitalizations, and severe outcomes were estimated using conditional logistic regression adjusted by patients’ comorbidities and medication history during the outbreak from January to August 2022. A total of 36,434 COVID-19 cases, 2231 COVID-19-related hospitalizations, and 1918 severe COVID-19 cases were matched to 109,004, 21,788, and 18,823 controls, respectively. Compared to the unvaccinated group, three doses of BNT162b2 or CoronaVac was associated with reduced risk of infection [VE: BNT162b2: 56.0% (95% CI: 49.6–61.6), CoronaVac: 39.4% (95% CI: 25.6–50.6)], hospitalization [VE: BNT162b2: 58.9% (95% CI: 36.1–73.6), CoronaVac: 51.7% (11.6–73.6)], and severe outcomes [VE: BNT162b2: 60.2% (95% CI: 33.7–76.1), CoronaVac: 42.2% (95% CI: −6.2–68.6)]. Our findings showed that three doses of BNT162b2 or CoronaVac was effective in preventing COVID-19, hospitalizations, and severe outcomes among the pediatric population during Omicron-dominant pandemic, which was further enhanced after a booster dose