Publications by authors named "Birgit Debrabant"

Objective: Intraventricular hemorrhage (IVH) is a serious condition with high mortality rates and poor functional outcome in survivors. Treatment includes external ventricular drains (EVDs), which are associated with several complications. This study reports the clinical outcome and complication rate in patients with primary IVH (pIVH) and secondary IVH treated with EVDs.

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  • This study investigates how comorbidities, especially vascular ones, affect patients with multiple sclerosis (MS), neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder (NMOSD), and MOG-antibody-associated disease (MOGAD), potentially worsening their neurological condition.* -
  • The proposed study, called COMMIT, will involve a diverse group of patients and will analyze various biological markers related to inflammation and neurodegeneration using advanced technologies and data analysis methods.* -
  • The ultimate aim is to understand the influence of comorbidities on the clinical outcomes of these CNS diseases, potentially leading to better treatment strategies for improving patient health and quality of life.*
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Background: Postoperative drainage after surgical evacuation of chronic subdural haematoma reduces the risk of recurrence, but the optimum drainage time is uncertain. We aimed to investigate the shortest possible drainage time without increasing the haematoma recurrence rate.

Methods: We conducted a randomised, multi-arm and multistage non-inferiority trial at four neurosurgical centres in Denmark.

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Objectives: A new school policy mandating 45 min physical activity daily during school was introduced in Denmark in 2014. We aimed to evaluate the effect of this policy on BMI in school-aged children. It was hypothesized that the school policy would decrease BMI, especially in the obese fraction of the population (90th percentile BMI).

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Introduction: Intraventricular haemorrhage (IVH) is associated with high morbidity and mortality. External ventricular drainage (EVD) has been shown to decrease mortality. Although EVD is widely used, outcome and complication rates in EVD-treated patients with IVH are not fully elucidated.

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  • - A Danish school policy implemented in 2014 mandated 45 minutes of physical activity daily during school hours to combat declining activity levels among children and adolescents.
  • - The study evaluated over 4,800 children and adolescents using accelerometers to measure physical activity, comparing data from before (2009-2012) and after (2017/18) the policy was enacted.
  • - Results showed a significant increase in physical activity during school hours, especially among younger children, with an average daily increase of 14.2 minutes of overall movement and 6.5 minutes of moderate to vigorous activity post-policy.
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  • The study analyzes chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) cases in Denmark and Sweden from 1990 to 2020, aiming to assess reported cases and estimate the undiagnosed population born before 1965.
  • Denmark reported significantly fewer HCV cases annually than Sweden, with a peak in reports occurring in 2007 for Denmark and 1992 for Sweden, revealing differing birth year distributions indicative of ongoing infections.
  • The analysis estimated about 10,737 undiagnosed individuals in Denmark and 16,124 in Sweden among those born before 1965, highlighting discrepancies in reporting and suggesting a larger hidden population in Denmark compared to official estimates.
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Background: External ventricular drainage (EVD) is a key factor in the treatment of intraventricular hemorrhage (IVH) but associated with risks and complications. Intraventricular fibrinolysis (IVF) has been proposed to improve clinical outcome and reduce complications of EVD treatment. The following review and metaanalysis provides a comprehensive evaluation of IVH treatment with external ventricular drainage (EVD) and intraventricular fibrinolysis (IVF) with regards to complications and clinical outcomes.

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  • DNA methylation (DNAm) has a significant link to various diseases and is a potential factor in predicting mortality, particularly when combined with clinical risk factors.
  • In a study involving 15,013 participants over 10 years, researchers identified specific CpGs associated with all-cause mortality, cardiovascular, and cancer death in both European and African ancestry groups.
  • The study developed a DNAm-based prediction model that improved cancer death risk prediction, found potential causal relationships between certain CpGs and longevity, and highlighted their relevance in immune and cancer-related pathways.
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The comparison of two quantitative measuring devices is often performed with the Limits of Agreement proposed by Bland and Altman in their seminal Lancet paper back in 1986. Sample size considerations were rare for such agreement analyses in the past, but recently several proposals have been made depending on how agreement is to be assessed and the number of replicates to be used. We have summarized recent developments and recommendations in various situations including a distinction between method comparison and observer variability studies.

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Background: Chronic subdural hematoma (CSDH) is a common acute or subacute neurosurgical condition, typically treated by burr-hole evacuation and drainage. Recurrent CSDH occurs in 5-20% of cases and requires reoperation in symptomatic patients, sometimes repeatedly. Postoperative subdural drainage of maximal 48 h is effective in reducing recurrent hematomas.

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Background: The effect of remote pre- and postconditioning on anastomotic healing has been sparsely studied. The aim of our study was to investigate whether remote ischemic conditioning (RIC) applied before and after the creation of a small bowel anastomosis had an effect on anastomotic healing on postoperative day five evaluated by a tensile strength test and histological analysis.

Materials And Methods: Twenty-two female piglets were randomized into two groups.

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Objective: Placement of a subdural drain reduces recurrence and death after evacuation of chronic subdural hematoma (CSDH), but little is known about optimal drainage duration. In the present national trial, the authors investigated the effect of drainage duration on recurrence and death.

Methods: In a randomized controlled trial involving all neurosurgical departments in Denmark, patients treated with single burr hole evacuation of CSDH were randomly assigned to 24 hours or 48 hours of postoperative passive subdural drainage.

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Birth weight (BW) is an important predictor of newborn survival and health and has associations with many adult health outcomes, including cardiometabolic disorders, autoimmune diseases and mental health. On average, twins have a lower BW than singletons as a result of a different pattern of fetal growth and shorter gestational duration. Therefore, investigations into the genetics of BW often exclude data from twins, leading to a reduction in sample size and remaining ambiguities concerning the genetic contribution to BW in twins.

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Aim: Heparin administration affects the concentrations of many plasma proteins through their displacement from the endothelial glycocalyx. A differentiated protein response in diabetes will therefore, at least partly, reflect glycocalyx changes. This study aims at identifying biomarkers of endothelial dysfunction in diabetes by statistical exploration of plasma proteome data for interactions between diabetes status and heparin treatment.

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Objective: To investigate clinical outcomes in a real-world setting in the complete population-based cohort of alemtuzumab-treated MS patients in Denmark.

Methods: Data were retrieved from The Danish Multiple Sclerosis Registry between 2009 and 2019. Demographic and disease-specific patient parameters related to treatment history, efficacy, and safety outcomes were assessed at baseline and during follow-up visits.

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The Bland-Altman plot is the most common method to analyze and visualize agreement between raters or methods of quantitative outcomes in health research. While very useful for studies with two raters, a limitation of the classical Bland-Altman plot is that it is specifically used for studies with two raters. We propose an extension of the Bland-Altman plot suitable for more than two raters and derive the approximate limits of agreement with 95% confidence intervals.

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Aim: Acute myocardial infarction (AMI) remains a major cause of mortality and morbidity, and cardiogenic shock (CS) a major cause of hospital mortality after AMI. Especially for ST elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) patients, fast intervention is essential.Few proteins have proven clinically applicable for AMI.

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  • * Guidelines recommend that sufficient numbers of animals are used for experiments while minimizing overall animal use, raising issues around the mandatory inclusion of both sexes in research designs.
  • * While sex differences are proving relevant in many physiological studies, the blanket requirement to include both sexes in all protocols may lead to wastefulness and compromise ethical principles of animal research.
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Background: Chronic subdural hematoma (CSDH) remains a neurosurgical condition with high recurrence rate after surgical treatment. The primary pathological mechanism is considered to be repeated microbleedings from fragile neo-vessels within the outer hematoma membrane. The neo-vessels are supplied from peripheral branches of the middle meningeal artery, and embolization of MMA (eMMA) has been performed to prevent re-bleeding episodes and thereby CSDH recurrence.

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Human longevity is heritable, but genome-wide association (GWA) studies have had limited success. Here, we perform two meta-analyses of GWA studies of a rigorous longevity phenotype definition including 11,262/3484 cases surviving at or beyond the age corresponding to the 90th/99th survival percentile, respectively, and 25,483 controls whose age at death or at last contact was at or below the age corresponding to the 60th survival percentile. Consistent with previous reports, rs429358 (apolipoprotein E (ApoE) ε4) is associated with lower odds of surviving to the 90th and 99th percentile age, while rs7412 (ApoE ε2) shows the opposite.

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Hand grip strength is a measure of muscular strength and is used to study age-related loss of physical capacity. In order to explore the biological mechanisms that influence hand grip strength variation, an epigenome-wide association study (EWAS) of hand grip strength in 672 middle-aged and elderly monozygotic twins (age 55-90 years) was performed, using both individual and twin pair level analyses, the latter controlling the influence of genetic variation. Moreover, as measurements of hand grip strength performed over 8 years were available in the elderly twins (age 73-90 at intake), a longitudinal EWAS was conducted for this subsample.

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