Road traffic noise and children's inattention

BACKGROUND: An increasing number of children are exposed to road traffic noise levels that may lead to adverse effects on health and daily functioning. Childhood is a period of intense growth and brain maturation, and children may therefore be especially vulnerable to road traffic noise. The objective of the present study was to examine whether road traffic noise was associated with reported inattention symptoms in children, and whether this association was mediated by sleep duration. METHODS: This study was based on the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study conducted by the Norwegian Institute of Public Health. Parental reports of children's inattention at age 8 were linked to modelled levels of residential road traffic noise. We investigated the association between inattention and noise exposure during pregnancy (n = 1934), noise exposure averaged over 5 years (age 3 to 8 years; n = 1384) and noise exposure at age 8 years (n = 1384), using fractional logit response models. The participants were children from Oslo, Norway. RESULTS: An association with inattention at age 8 years was found for road traffic noise exposure at age 8 years (coef = .0083, CI = [.0012, .0154]; 1.2% point increase in inattention score per 10 dB increase in noise level), road traffic noise exposure average for the last 5 years (coef = .0090, CI = [.0016, .0164]; 1.3% point increase/10 dB), and for pregnancy road traffic noise exposure for boys (coef = .0091, CI = [.0010, .0171]), but not girls (coef = -.0021, CI = [-.0094, .0053]). Criteria for doing mediation analyses were not fulfilled. CONCLUSION: Results indicate that road traffic noise has a negative impact on children's inattention. We found no mediation by sleep duration

Serum galectin-1 in patients with multiple myeloma: associations with survival, angiogenesis, and biomarkers of macrophage activation

Morten Nørgaard Andersen,1–3,* Maja Ludvigsen,1,3,* Niels Abildgaard,4 Irma Petruskevicius,3 Rikke Hjortebjerg,5 Mette Bjerre,5 Bent Honoré,1 Holger J Møller,2 Niels F Andersen31Department of Biomedicine, Faculty of Health, Aarhus University, 2Department of Clinical Biochemistry, 3Department of Hematology, Aarhus University Hospital, Aarhus, 4Department of Hematology, Odense University Hospital, Odense, 5Medical Research Laboratory, Department of Clinical Medicine, Faculty of Health, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark*These authors contributed equally to this workAbstract: Galectin-1 (Gal-1) is known to regulate cell signaling within the immune system and may be a target for new anticancer immune therapy. In patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and classical Hodgkin lymphoma (cHL), high levels of Gal-1 within the tumor microenvironment were associated with worse disease state or poor outcome. Gal-1 can be secreted from cells by an unknown mechanism, and levels in blood samples were associated with high tumor burden and worse disease state in cHL and CLL patients. However, serum levels of Gal-1 have never been investigated in patients with multiple myeloma (MM). We measured serum Gal-1 levels in samples from patients with treatment demanding MM at the time of diagnosis (n=102) and after treatment (n=24) and examined associations of serum Gal-1 with clinicopathological information obtained from patient medical records, as well as data on bone marrow angiogenesis and the macrophage activation biomarkers soluble CD163 (sCD163) and soluble mannose receptor. Serum Gal-1 levels were not elevated in patients with MM at diagnosis compared with healthy donors (median values 8.48 vs 11.93 ng/mL, P=0.05), which is in contrast to results in cHL and CLL. Furthermore, Gal-1 levels did not show association with bone marrow angiogenesis, clinicopathological parameters, overall survival, or response to treatment. There was a statically significant association between Gal-1 and sCD163 levels (R=0.24, P=0.02), but not with soluble mannose receptor (P=0.92). In conclusion, our results indicate that Gal-1 is not an important serum biomarker in MM, which is in contrast to data from patients with cHL and CLL. However, the association with sCD163 is in line with previous data showing that Gal-1 may be involved in alternative (M2-like) activation of macrophages.Keywords: galectin-1, multiple myeloma, macrophage, soluble CD163, soluble mannose receptor, angiogenesi

Clinical relevance of galectin-1 in hematologic malignancies treated with non-myeloablative hemopoietic stem cell transplantation

Non-myeloablative hemopoietic stem cell transplantation (NM-HSCT) is often the only curative treatment option for patients with hematologic malignancies.1 However, the treatment is frequently complicated by significant morbidity and mortality, acute GvHD (aGvHD) and chronic GvHD (cGvHD) being among the major causes.Fil: Petruskevicius, I.. Arhus Universitetshospital; DinamarcaFil: Ludvigsen, M.. University Aarhus; DinamarcaFil: Hjortebjerg, R.. Arhus Universitetshospital; DinamarcaFil: Sorensen, B. S.. Arhus Universitetshospital; DinamarcaFil: Kamper, P.. Arhus Universitetshospital; DinamarcaFil: Vase, M.. Arhus Universitetshospital; DinamarcaFil: Oestgaard, L. G.. Arhus Universitetshospital; DinamarcaFil: Nielsen, B.. Arhus Universitetshospital; DinamarcaFil: Honoré, B.. Arhus Universitetshospital; DinamarcaFil: Bjerre, M.. Arhus Universitetshospital; DinamarcaFil: Rabinovich, Gabriel Adrián. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto de Biología y Medicina Experimental. Fundación de Instituto de Biología y Medicina Experimental. Instituto de Biología y Medicina Experimental; ArgentinaFil: D'Amore, F. A.. Arhus Universitetshospital; Dinamarc