| 1. |
- Menditto, Enrica, et al.
(författare)
-
Adherence to treatment in allergic rhinitis using mobile technology : The MASK Study
- 2019
-
Ingår i: Clinical and Experimental Allergy. - : WILEY. - 0954-7894 .- 1365-2222. ; 49:4, s. 442-460
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: Mobile technology may help to better understand the adherence to treatment. MASK-rhinitis (Mobile Airways Sentinel NetworK for allergic rhinitis) is a patient-centred ICT system. A mobile phone app (the Allergy Diary) central to MASK is available in 22 countries. Objectives: To assess the adherence to treatment in allergic rhinitis patients using the Allergy Diary App. Methods: An observational cross-sectional study was carried out on all users who filled in the Allergy Diary from 1 January 2016 to 1 August 2017. Secondary adherence was assessed by using the modified Medication Possession Ratio (MPR) and the Proportion of days covered (PDC) approach. Results: A total of 12143 users were registered. A total of 6949 users reported at least one VAS data recording. Among them, 1887 users reported >= 7 VAS data. About 1195 subjects were included in the analysis of adherence. One hundred and thirty-six (11.28%) users were adherent (MPR >= 70% and PDC <= 1.25), 51 (4.23%) were partly adherent (MPR >= 70% and PDC = 1.50) and 176 (14.60%) were switchers. On the other hand, 832 (69.05%) users were non-adherent to medications (MPR <70%). Of those, the largest group was non-adherent to medications and the time interval was increased in 442 (36.68%) users. Conclusion and clinical relevance: Adherence to treatment is low. The relative efficacy of continuous vs on-demand treatment for allergic rhinitis symptoms is still a matter of debate. This study shows an approach for measuring retrospective adherence based on a mobile app. This also represents a novel approach for analysing medication-taking behaviour in a real-world setting.
|
|
| 2. |
- Schön, Thomas, et al.
(författare)
-
Effects of a food supplement rich in arginine in patients with smear positive pulmonary tuberculosis - A randomised trial
- 2011
-
Ingår i: Tuberculosis. - : Elsevier. - 1472-9792 .- 1873-281X. ; 91:5, s. 370-377
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In tuberculosis (TB), the production of nitric oxide (NO) is confirmed but its importance in host defense is debated. Our aim was to investigate whether a food supplement rich in arginine could enhance clinical improvement in TB patients by increased NO production. Smear positive TB patients from Gondar, Ethiopia (n = 180) were randomized to a food supplementation rich in arginine (peanuts, equivalent to 1 g of arginine/day) or with a low arginine content (wheat crackers, locally called daboqolo) during four weeks. The primary outcome was cure rate according to the WHO classification and secondary outcomes were sputum smear conversion, weight gain, sedimentation rate, reduction of cough and chest X-ray improvement as well as levels of NO in urine (uNO) or exhaled air (eNO) at two months. There was no effect of the intervention on the primary outcome (OR 1.44, 95% CI: 0.69-3.0, p = 0.39) or secondary outcomes. In the subgroup analysis according to HIV status, peanut supplemented HIV+/TB patients showed increased cure rate (83.8% (31/37) vs 53.1% (17/32), p andlt; 0.01). A low baseline eNO (andlt; 10 ppb) in HIV+/TB patients was associated with a decreased cure rate. We conclude that nutritional supplementation with a food supplement rich in arginine did not have any overall clinical effect. In the subgroup of HIV positive TB patients, it significantly increased the cure rate and as an additional finding in this subgroup, low initial levels of NO in exhaled air were associated with a poor clinical outcome but this needs to be confirmed in further studies.
|
|
| 3. |
- Lundberg, K., et al.
(författare)
-
A pH-induced modification of CII increases its arthritogenic properties
- 2004
-
Ingår i: Journal of Autoimmunity. - : Elsevier BV. - 0896-8411 .- 1095-9157. ; 23:2, s. 95-102
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Immunoreactivity to collagen type II (CII) has been implicated in the pathogenesis of rheumatoid arthritis. Patients have been described to have an acidic pH in their inflamed synovial tissue. It is known that protein structures are modified by environmental pH, thus it is plausible that changes in synovial pH could affect the conformation of proteins like CII. Posttranslational modifications could alter the biophysical properties of cartilage proteins leading to autoimmunity. In this study we investigated if arthritogenicity of CII was affected by changes in pH, and if so, this could be correlated to altered protein conformation. Immunisation with CII at neutral pH induced a milder disease than did CII at acidic pH. All animals elicited a humoral response to CII, although with a significantly higher IgG1/IgG2b-ratio in the pH 7.4 group. Analysis by circular dichroism and electron microscopy indicated less fibrillation of CII at low pH as compared to neutral pH. Our results suggest that CII is more immunogenic and arthritogenic in an acidic environment than in a neutral environment. We can correlate these findings to pH-induced conformational changes of CII. Hence, self-tolerance to CII might be affected by changes in pH leading to altered and increased arthritogenicity. © 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
|
|
