VACCINATION AGAINST SWINE FLU CAUSED NARCOLEPSY IN SEVERAL EUROPEAN COUNTRIES

Publisher Copyright: © 2020 Boström I., Lindberger O., Partinen M., Landtblom A.M. All Rights Reserved.Narcolepsy is a rare sleeping disorder that gives sleep onset rapid eye movement periods and excessive daytime sleepiness. It is divided into two subgroups, narcolepsy type 1 where there also is orexin deficiency and cataplexy and narcolepsy type 2 that lack these features. Narcolepsy type 1 is assumed to be an autoimmune disease with destruction of orexin-producing cells. The pathology behind is unclear. There is a strong association to a class II HLA allele, HLADQB1*06:02 and the H1N1-virus and streptococcal infections has also been associated with narcolepsy. The severity of narcolepsy differs between patients from those who can manage their disease without medication to those who has a severe impact on their everyday life. There is a diagnostic delay between the onset of symptoms and time for diagnosis that in some cases can be more than a decade. The global mean prevalence is 30 per 100 000 inhabitants. The incidence in children in northern Europe has risen since 2010. An early study of the 2009 H1N1 influenza A pandemic indicated a high mortality and prompted efforts to rapidly come up with a vaccine. One of these was Pandemrix that was the most widely used in Europe and 61 % of the inhabitants in Sweden was vaccinated. Studies have shown an increased incidence of narcolepsy type 1 in European countries that had used Pandemrix, but no increased risk was seen in countries that had used other vaccines than Pandemrix.Peer reviewe

Fibromyalgia is often connected with disability pension : a very long-term follow-up study in Finland

Non peer reviewe

Stenosis detection in coronary angiography images using deep learning models

The emergence of deep learning has caused its massive application to different fields in industry and research, among which is the clinical field, especially in those where the data is structured in the form of images or video. The present proposal intends to develop a coronary angiography image analysis system based on artificial intelligence. These images are radiocontrast X-ray images of the coronary arteries. The proposed system will be able to analyze these coronary angiography images of patients with no obstructive coronary lesions to detect and characterize smooth and irregular coronary arteries and predict the presence of cardiovascular events during follow-up. Deep learning convolutional artificial neural networks will support the algorithmic basis of the proposed system.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Incidence of narcolepsy after H1N1 influenza and vaccinations : Systematic review and meta-analysis

An increased incidence of narcolepsy was seen in many countries after the pandemic H1N1 influenza vaccination campaign in 2009-2010. The H1N1 vaccine - narcolepsy connection is based on observational studies that are prone to various biases, e.g., confounding by H1N1 infection, and ascertainment, recall and selection biases. A direct pathogenic link has, however, remained elusive. We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to analyze the magnitude of H1N1 vaccination related risk and to examine if there was any association with H1N1 infection itself. We searched all articles from PubMed, Web of Science and Scopus, and other relevant sources reporting the incidence and risk of post-vaccine narcolepsy. In our paper, we show that the risk appears to be limited to only one vaccine (Pandemrix (R)). During the first year after vaccination, the relative risk of narcolepsy was increased 5 to 14-fold in children and adolescents and 2 to 7-fold in adults. The vaccine attributable risk in children and adolescents was around 1 per 18,400 vaccine doses. Studies from Finland and Sweden also appear to demonstrate an extended risk of narcolepsy into the second year following vaccination, but such conclusions should be interpreted with a word of caution due to possible biases. Benefits of immunization outweigh the risk of vaccination-associated narcolepsy, which remains a rare disease. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.Peer reviewe

Face masks to prevent transmission of respiratory infections : Systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials on face mask use

Funding Information: The Strategic Research Council, Academy of Finland, 340551, LL. The Strategic Research Council, Academy of Finland, 340539, HMO. Publisher Copyright: Copyright: © 2022 Ollila et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.Objectives To examine the use of face mask intervention in mitigating the risk of spreading respiratory infections and whether the effect of face mask intervention differs in different exposure settings and age groups. Design Systematic review and meta-analysis. We evaluated the risk of bias using the Cochrane Risk of Bias 2 tool (ROB2). Data sources We searched PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, and Web of Science were searched for randomized controlled trials investigating the effect of face masks on respiratory infections published between 1981 and February 9, 2022. We followed the PRISMA 2020 guidelines. Eligibility criteria for selecting studies We included randomized controlled trials investigating the use of face mask intervention in mitigating the risk of spreading respiratory infections across different exposure settings. Results We identified 2,400 articles for screening. 18 articles passed the inclusion criteria for both evidence synthesis and meta-analysis. There were N = 189,145 individuals in the face mask intervention arm and N = 173,536 in the control arm, and the follow-up times ranged from 4 days to 19 months. Our results showed between-study heterogeneity (p < 0.0001). While there was no statistically significant association over all studies when the covariate unadjusted intervention effect estimates were used (RR = 0.977 [0.858–1.113], p = 0.728), our subgroup analyses revealed that a face mask intervention reduced respiratory infections in the adult subgroup (RR = 0.8795 [0.7861–0.9839], p = 0.0249) and in a community setting (RR = 0.890 [0.812–0.975], p = 0.0125). Furthermore, our leave-one-out analysis found that one study biased the results towards a null effect. Consequently, when using covariate adjusted odds ratio estimates to have a more precise effect estimates of the intervention effect to account for differences at the baseline, the results showed that a face mask intervention did reduce respiratory infections when the biasing study was excluded from the analysis (OR = 0.8892 [0.8061–0.9810], p = 0.0192). Conclusion Our findings support the use of face masks particularly in a community setting and for adults. We also observed substantial between-study heterogeneity and varying adherence to protocol. Notably, many studies were subject to contamination bias thus affecting the efficacy of the intervention, that is when also some controls used masks or when the intervention group did not comply with mask use leading to a downward biased effect of treatment receipt and efficacy.Peer reviewe

Dream-enactment behaviours during the COVID-19 pandemic: an international COVID-19 sleep study

There has been increasing concern about the long-term impact of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) as evidenced by anecdotal case reports of acute-onset parkinsonism and the polysomnographic feature of increased rapid eye movement sleep electromyographic activity. This study aimed to determine the prevalence and correlates of dream-enactment behaviours, a hallmark of rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder, which is a prodrome of α-synucleinopathy. This online survey was conducted between May and August 2020 in 15 countries/regions targeting adult participants (aged ≥18 years) from the general population with a harmonised structured questionnaire on sleep patterns and disorders, COVID-19 diagnosis and symptoms. We assessed dream-enactment behaviours using the Rapid Eye Movement Sleep Behaviour Disorder Single-Question Screen with an additional question on their frequency. Among 26,539 respondents, 21,870 (82.2%) answered all items that were analysed in this study (mean [SD] age 41.6&nbsp;[15.8]&nbsp;years; female sex 65.5%). The weighted prevalence of lifetime and weekly dream-enactment behaviours was 19.4% and 3.1% and were found to be 1.8- and 2.9-times higher in COVID-19-positive cases, respectively. Both lifetime and weekly dream-enactment behaviours were associated with young age, male sex, smoking, alcohol consumption, higher physical activity level, nightmares, COVID-19 diagnosis, olfactory impairment, obstructive sleep apnea symptoms, mood, and post-traumatic stress disorder features. Among COVID-19-positive cases, weekly dream-enactment behaviours were positively associated with the severity of COVID-19. Dream-enactment behaviours are common among the general population during the COVID-19 pandemic and further increase among patients with COVID-19. Further studies are needed to investigate the potential neurodegenerative effect of COVID-19

Sleep-Disordered Breathing in Alcoholics: Association with Age

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/66156/1/j.1530-0277.1993.tb05224.x.pd

Alterations of nocturnal activity in rats following subchronic oral administration of the neurotoxin 1-trichloromethyl-1,2,3,4-tetrahydro-β-carboline

1-Trichloromethyl-1,2,3,4-tetrahydro-β-carboline (TaClo) is neurotoxic when administered to the brain and alters motor behaviour following intraperitoneal administration. We have assessed the long-term effects of oral TaClo administration on nocturnal motor behaviour in rats. Two groups of rats received TaClo orally at a dose of either 0.2 or 0.4 mg/kg twice daily for 7 weeks. The control group was given saline. No change in locomotor activity was observed 4–9 days after the end of the 7-week administration of TaClo. In addition, the spontaneous motor activity was altered dose-dependently 9 months after oral TaClo administration, with an increase in the low-dose TaClo group and a decrease in the high-dose group. Oral administration of TaClo in rats may be useful in investigating the hypothesis that in Parkinson’s disease, an unknown pathogenic factor crossing the intestinal mucosa barrier can induce neurodegenerative processes eventually affecting the entire brain

Orexin Receptor Antagonism, a New Sleep-Enabling Paradigm: A Proof-of-Concept Clinical Trial

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