Pulse oximetry screening for congenital heart defects in Switzerland: most but not all maternity units screen their neonate

QUESTIONS: In Switzerland, the screening of neonates for congenital heart defects (CHD) by using pulse oximetry (PO) on the first day of life was recommended in 2005. We assessed the current practice of Swiss maternity units regarding PO screening to define the actual screening rate in Switzerland and to detect possible difficulties in the implementation of this screening. METHODS: This descriptive study was conducted by means of a standardized questionnaire that was sent to all Swiss maternity units. RESULTS: The response rate was 100%. 76% of the units perform regular PO screening and, on the basis of the number of births for 2007, this means that 85% of newborns in Switzerland undergo screening. Although units which do not perform PO screening include every category of maternity unit, the screening is performed to a significantly lower extent in birthing centres than in hospitals (p 1000 births per year). The main reasons for not performing PO screening are financial factors and the belief that clinical signs are sufficient for the detection of CHD. CONCLUSIONS: Greater effort is needed to implement a nationwide PO screening program for CHD. Special attention should be paid to birthing centres given their limited capacity to treat newborns with critical CHD

Biodiversité et services écosystémiques pour les humains

Dans un contexte d’accroissement de la vulnérabilité des êtres humains et des sociétés humaines face au dérèglement climatique et à l’effondrement de la biodiversité, il devient indispensable de mener une réflexion approfondie sur les liens complexes qu’entretiennent l’environnement et notre santé. Appréhender un sujet aussi multidimensionnel nécessite de s’ouvrir à différentes perspectives. En effet, si nous voulons apprendre à prendre soin et à soigner autrement, en tenant compte de ce que l’on nomme «l’interdépendance du vivant», nous devons prêter attention aux connaissances apportées par les sciences humaines et sociales, les sciences de l’environnement, les sciences de l’ingénierie ou encore les sciences de la santé. Ce livre écrit par quelque 70 autrices et auteurs d’horizons disciplinaires différents et revu indépendamment par plus de 30 expertes et experts est une invitation à aller voir au-delà de son propre champ professionnel. Il s’adresse à toutes les personnes soucieuses de trouver quelques clés de compréhension pour penser la santé dans l’environnement et entamer une nécessaire transformation socioécologique des services de santé. Le présent chapitre présente le concept de services écosystémiques, en terminant avec un focus plus particulier concernant ceux sur la santé humaine

Downscaling Switzerland Land Use/Land Cover Data Using Nearest Neighbors and an Expert System

High spatial and thematic resolution of Land Use/Cover (LU/LC) maps are central for accurate watershed analyses, improved species, and habitat distribution modeling as well as ecosystem services assessment, robust assessments of LU/LC changes, and calculation of indices. Downscaled LU/LC maps for Switzerland were obtained for three time periods by blending two inputs: the Swiss topographic base map at a 1:25,000 scale and the national LU/LC statistics obtained from aerial photointerpretation on a 100 m regular lattice of points. The spatial resolution of the resulting LU/LC map was improved by a factor of 16 to reach a resolution of 25 m, while the thematic resolution was increased from 29 (in the base map) to 62 land use categories. The method combines a simple inverse distance spatial weighting of 36 nearest neighbors’ information and an expert system of correspondence between input base map categories and possible output LU/LC types. The developed algorithm, written in Python, reads and writes gridded layers of more than 64 million pixels. Given the size of the analyzed area, a High-Performance Computing (HPC) cluster was used to parallelize the data and the analysis and to obtain results more efficiently. The method presented in this study is a generalizable approach that can be used to downscale different types of geographic information

Incidence and risk factors for early adjacent vertebral fractures after balloon kyphoplasty for osteoporotic fractures: analysis of the SWISSspine registry

PURPOSE The SWISSspine registry (SSR) was launched in 2005 to assess the safety and effectiveness of balloon kyphoplasty (BKP). In the meantime, repeated reports on high rates of adjacent vertebral fractures (ASF) after BKP of vertebral insufficiency fractures were published. The causes for ASF and their risk factors are still under debate. The purpose of this study was to report the incidence and potential risk factors of ASF within the SSR dataset. METHODS The SSR data points are collected perioperatively and during follow-ups, with surgeon- and patient-based information. All patients documented with a monosegmental osteoporotic vertebral insufficiency fracture between March 2005 and May 2012 were included in the study. The incidence of ASF, significant associations with co-variates (patient age, gender, fracture location, cement volume, preoperative segmental kyphosis, extent of kyphosis correction, and individual co-morbidities) and influence on quality of life (EQ-5D) and back pain (VAS) were analyzed. RESULTS A total of 375 patients with a mean follow-up of 3.6 months was included. ASF were found in 9.9 % (n = 37) and occurred on average 2.8 months postoperatively. Preoperative segmental kyphosis >30° (p = 0.026), and rheumatoid arthritis (p = 0.038) and cardiovascular disease (p = 0.047) were significantly associated with ASF. Furthermore, patients with ASF had significantly higher back pain at the final follow-up (p = 0.001). No further significant associations between the studied co-variates and ASF were seen in the adjusted analysis. CONCLUSIONS The findings suggest that patients with a preoperative segmental kyphosis >30° or patients with co-morbidities like rheumatoid arthritis and a cardiovascular disease are at high risk of ASF within 6 months after the index surgery. In case of an ASF event, back pain levels are significantly increased. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE IV

<i>SWECO25</i>: a cross-thematic raster database for ecological research in Switzerland

Standard and easily accessible cross-thematic spatial databases are key resources in ecological research. In Switzerland, as in many other countries, available data are scattered across computer servers of research institutions and are rarely provided in standard formats (e.g., different extents or projections systems, inconsistent naming conventions). Consequently, their joint use can require heavy data management and geomatic operations. Here, we introduce SWECO25 , a Swiss-wide raster database at 25-meter resolution gathering 5,265 layers. The 10 environmental categories included in SWECO25 are: geologic, topographic, bioclimatic, hydrologic, edaphic, land use and cover, population, transportation, vegetation, and remote sensing. SWECO25 layers were standardized to a common grid sharing the same resolution, extent, and geographic coordinate system. SWECO25 includes the standardized source data and newly calculated layers, such as those obtained by computing focal or distance statistics. SWECO25 layers were validated by a data integrity check, and we verified that the standardization procedure had a negligible effect on the output values. SWECO25 is available on Zenodo and is intended to be updated and extended regularly

Diagnostic accuracy of pulse oximetry screening for critical congenital heart defects

This is the protocol for a review and there is no abstract. The objectives are as follows: To determine the diagnostic accuracy of pulse oximetry as a screening method for the detection of critical congenital heart defects in asymptomatic newborn infants. Diagnostic accuracy is described by the proportion of asymptomatic newborn infants with CCHD detected by a positive pulse oximetry result (sensitivity), and the proportion of asymptomatic newborn infants with a negative pulse oximetry result who did not have CCHD (specificity). To assess potential sources of heterogeneity including: study design: retrospective vs prospective design, consecutive vs non consecutive series timing of testing: &lt; 24 hours vs ≥ 24 hours after birth site of testing: right hand and foot (pre-ductal and post-ductal) vs foot only (post-ductal) oxygen saturation: functional vs fractional characteristics of the population: antenatal screening.</p