| 1. |
- Anttonen, Julia, et al.
(author)
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Pre- and postdiagnosis growth failure, adult short stature, and untreated growth hormone deficiency in radiotherapy-treated long-term survivors of childhood brain tumor
- 2022
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In: PLOS ONE. - : Public Library of Science (PLoS). - 1932-6203. ; 17:9
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- PurposeGrowth failure is common in radiotherapy-treated long-term survivors of pediatric brain tumors, but studies on longitudinal growth in this patient group are lacking. Here, the aim was to assess the changes in growth patterns before and after brain tumor diagnosis, the adult height, and the risk factors for compromised growth. The incidence and treatment practices of growth hormone deficiency were analyzed.MethodsA cohort of 73 survivors of childhood brain tumor (median age 27.2 years, range 16.2 to 43.8 years) was studied after a median follow-up period of 20.4 years from diagnosis (IQR 14.9 to 22.9 years). Patients were treated in five university hospitals in Finland between 1970 and 2008. Growth curves, final height, and patient- and disease-related risk factors for compromised growth during different growth periods were analyzed. Laboratory analyses for IGF-1 and IGFBP-3 were performed at the follow-up.ResultsGrowth failure was evident at diagnosis, with a mean height decline of -0.6 SDS (standard deviation score) from birth (95% CI -1.15 to -0.05). Mean height SDS decline after the diagnosis was -1.09 SDS (95%CI -1.51 to -0.66). At follow-up, 37% of the study subjects (27/73) had true short stature (height < -2 SDS). The mean height deficit corrected for target height was -1.9 SDS (95% CI -1.45 to -2.40). Growth failure was associated with the age at diagnosis, corticosteroid dose, radiotherapy modality and mean dose of irradiation in the thalamic area. Low IGF-1 level (below -2.0 SDS) was found in 32% (23/72), and untreated growth hormone deficiency in 40% (29/72) of the subjects.ConclusionLongitudinal growth impairment was common in radiotherapy-treated survivors of childhood brain tumor, resulting in compromised adult height. Loss of growth potential was evident already at diagnosis and further accelerated by the treatments. At young adulthood, unrecognized growth hormone deficiency was common.
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| 2. |
- Bass, Gary Alan, 1979-, et al.
(author)
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Techniques for mesoappendix transection and appendix resection: insights from the ESTES SnapAppy study
- 2023
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In: European Journal of Trauma and Emergency Surgery. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1863-9933 .- 1615-3146 .- 1863-9941. ; 49, s. 17-32
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Introduction: Surgically managed appendicitis exhibits great heterogeneity in techniques for mesoappendix transection and appendix amputation from its base. It is unclear whether a particular surgical technique provides outcome benefit or reduces complications. Material and methods: We undertook a pre-specified subgroup analysis of all patients who underwent laparoscopic appendectomy at index admission during SnapAppy (ClinicalTrials.gov Registration: NCT04365491). We collected routine, anonymized observational data regarding surgical technique, patient demographics and indices of disease severity, without change to clinical care pathway or usual surgeon preference. Outcome measures of interest were the incidence of complications, unplanned reoperation, readmission, admission to the ICU, death, hospital length of stay, and procedure duration. We used Poisson regression models with robust standard errors to calculate incident rate ratios (IRRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs). Results: Three-thousand seven hundred sixty-eight consecutive adult patients, included from 71 centers in 14 countries, were followed up from date of admission for 90days. The mesoappendix was divided hemostatically using electrocautery in 1564(69.4%) and an energy device in 688(30.5%). The appendix was amputated by division of its base between looped ligatures in 1379(37.0%), with a stapler in 1421(38.1%) and between clips in 929(24.9%). The technique for securely dividing the appendix at its base in acutely inflamed (AAST Grade 1) appendicitis was equally divided between division between looped ligatures, clips and stapled transection. However, the technique used differed in complicated appendicitis (AAST Grade 2 +) compared with uncomplicated (Grade 1), with a shift toward transection of the appendix base by stapler (58% vs. 38%; p < 0.001). While no statistical difference in outcomes could be detected between different techniques for division of appendix base, decreased risk of any [adjusted IRR (95% CI): 0.58 (0.41–0.82), p = 0.002] and severe [adjusted IRR (95% CI): 0.33 (0.11–0.96), p = 0.045] complications could be detected when using energy devices. Conclusions: Safe mesoappendix transection and appendix resection are accomplished using heterogeneous techniques. Technique selection for both mesoappendix transection and appendix resection correlates with AAST grade. Higher grade led to more ultrasonic tissue transection and stapled appendix resection. Higher AAST appendicitis grade also correlated with infection-related complication occurrence. Despite the overall well-tolerated heterogeneity of approaches to acute appendicitis, increasing disease acuity or complexity appears to encourage homogeneity of intraoperative surgical technique toward advanced adjuncts.
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| 3. |
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| 4. |
- Drobac, Senka, et al.
(author)
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The Labourious Cleaning : Acquiring and Transforming 19th-Century Epistolary Metadata
- 2023
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In: DHNB2023 Conference Proceedings. - Oslo.
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The paper documents the process of collecting, consolidating, and publishing epistolary metadata from Finnish cultural heritage organizations to create an archive for bottom-up analyses of 19th-century epistolary culture. We describe and discuss the data survey that was conducted to gather information about available letter collections across Finland, as well as the cleaning and harmonizing of over 350,000 letters from twelve different sources in various digital formats. We have also developed a data model that combines event-based and letter-based aspects of the metadata. Furthermore, the paper contributes tothe ongoing discussion of the initial phases of data-intensive research and the importance of discussing the labor of cleaning data. We believe that our experiences described in this paper can have wider significance for other digital humanities projects in Europe.
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| 5. |
- Forssten, Maximilian Peter, 1996-, et al.
(author)
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Surgical management of acute appendicitis during the European COVID-19 second wave: safe and effective
- 2023
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In: European Journal of Trauma and Emergency Surgery. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1863-9933 .- 1615-3146 .- 1863-9941. ; 49, s. 57-67
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Introduction: The COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic drove acute care surgeons to pivot from long established practice patterns. Early safety concerns regarding increased postoperative complication risk in those with active COVID infection promoted antibiotic-driven non-operative therapy for select conditions ahead of an evidence-base. Our study assesses whether active or recent SARS-CoV-2 positivity increases hospital length of stay (LOS) or postoperative complications following appendectomy. Methods: Data were derived from the prospective multi-institutional observational SnapAppy cohort study. This preplanned data analysis assessed consecutive patients aged ≥ 15years who underwent appendectomy for appendicitis (November 2020–May 2021). Patients were categorized based on SARS-CoV-2 seropositivity: no infection, active infection, and prior infection. Appendectomy method, LOS, and complications were abstracted. The association between SARS-CoV-2 seropositivity and complications was determined using Poisson regression, while the association with LOS was calculated using a quantile regression model. Results: Appendectomy for acute appendicitis was performed in 4047 patients during the second and third European COVID waves. The majority were SARS-CoV-2 uninfected (3861, 95.4%), while 70 (1.7%) were acutely SARS-CoV-2 positive, and 116 (2.8%) reported prior SARS-CoV-2 infection. After confounder adjustment, there was no statistically significant association between SARS-CoV-2 seropositivity and LOS, any complication, or severe complications. Conclusion: During sequential SARS-CoV-2 infection waves, neither active nor prior SARS-CoV-2 infection was associated with prolonged hospital LOS or postoperative complication. Despite early concerns regarding postoperative safety and outcome during active SARS-CoV-2 infection, no such association was noted for those with appendicitis who underwent operative management.
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| 6. |
- Grahn, Petra, et al.
(author)
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Early disc degeneration in radiotherapy-treated childhood brain tumor survivors
- 2023
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In: BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders. - : BioMed Central (BMC). - 1471-2474. ; 24:1
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- BackgroundChildhood brain tumor (BT) survivors have an increased risk of treatment-related late effects, which can reduce health-related quality of life and increase morbidity. This study aimed to investigate lumbar disc degeneration in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in adult survivors of radiotherapy-treated childhood BT compared to age and sex-matched population controls.MethodsIn this cross-sectional comparative study, 127 survivors were identified from hospital registries. After a mean follow-up of 20.7 years (range 5-33.1), 67 survivors (mean age 28.4, range 16.2-43.5) were investigated with MRI and compared to 75 sex-matched population-based controls. Evaluated MRI phenotypes included Pfirrmann grading, , intervertebral disc protrusions, extrusions, and high-intensity-zone-lesions (HIZ). Groups were also compared for known risk factors of lumbar intervertebral disc (IVD) degeneration.ResultsChildhood BT survivors had higher Pfirrmann grades than controls at all lumbar levels (all p < 0.001). Lumbar disc protrusions at L4-5 (p = 0.02) and extrusions at L3-4 (p = 0.04), L4-5 (p = 0.004), and L5-S1 (p = 0.01) were significantly more common in the BT group compared to the control. The survivor cohort also had significantly more HIZ-lesons than the controls (n=13 and n=1, p=0.003). Age at diagnosis was associated with lower degree of IVD degeneration (p < 0.01). Blood pressure correlated with IVD degeneration (P < 0.05).ConclusionsSigns of early disc degeneration related to tumor treatment can be seen in the IVDs of survivors. Disc degeneration was more severe in children treated in adolescence.
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| 8. |
- Huang, Wei, et al.
(author)
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Potential pre-industrial–like new particle formation induced by pure biogenic organic vapors in Finnish peatland
- 2024
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In: Science Advances. - 2375-2548. ; 10:14
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Pure biogenic new particle formation (NPF) induced by highly oxygenated organic molecules (HOMs) could be an important mechanism for pre-industrial aerosol formation. However, it has not been unambiguously confirmed in the ambient due to the scarcity of truly pristine continental locations in the present-day atmosphere or the lack of chemical characterization of NPF precursors. Here, we report ambient observations of pure biogenic HOM-driven NPF over a peatland in southern Finland. Meteorological decoupling processes formed an “air pocket” (i.e., a very shallow surface layer) at night and favored NPF initiated entirely by biogenic HOM from this peatland, whose atmospheric environment closely resembles that of the pre-industrial era. Our study sheds light on pre-industrial aerosol formation, which represents the baseline for estimating the impact of present and future aerosol on climate, as well as on future NPF, the features of which may revert toward pre-industrial–like conditions due to air pollution mitigation.
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| 9. |
- Hyvönen, Eero, et al.
(author)
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Plenary Speeches of the Parliament of Finland as Linked Open Data and Data Services
- 2023
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In: Joint Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Knowledge Graph Generation From Text and the First International BiKE Challenge co-located with 20th Extended Semantic Conference (ESWC 2023). - : CEUR.
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This paper presents a new open infrastructure called ParliamentSampo for studying the parliamentary culture, language, and activities of politicians in Finland. For the first time, the entire time series of some million plenary speeches of the Parliament of Finland (PoF) since 1907 have been converted into data and data services in unified formats, including CSV, Parla-CLARIN, ParlaMint, and RDF Linked Open Data (LOD). The speech data have been interlinked with an ontology and a knowledge graph about the activities of the Members of Parliament (MP) and other speakers in the plenary sessions of the PoF, enriched by data linking from external data sources into a broader ontology-based LOD service. Knowledge extraction techniques based on Natural Language Processing (NLP) were used for automatic semantic annotations and topical classification of the speeches. The data and data services have been used in Digital Humanities (DH) research projects and for application development, especially for developing the in-use semantic portal ParliamentSampo. The infrastructure was published on February 14th 2023 on the Web using the open CC BY 4.0 license, and quickly gathered thousands of users.
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| 10. |
- Junninen, Heikki, et al.
(author)
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Terpene emissions from boreal wetlands can initiate stronger atmospheric new particle formation than boreal forests
- 2022
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In: Communications Earth and Environment. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2662-4435. ; 3:1
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Aerosols and their interaction with clouds constitute the largest uncertainty in estimating the radiative forcing affecting the climate system. Secondary aerosol formation is responsible for a large fraction of the cloud condensation nuclei in the global atmosphere. Wetlands are important to the budgets of methane and carbon dioxide, but the potential role of wetlands in aerosol formation has not been investigated. Here we use direct atmospheric sampling at the Siikaneva wetland in Finland to investigate the emission of methane and volatile organic compounds, and subsequently formed atmospheric clusters and aerosols. We find that terpenes initiate stronger atmospheric new particle formation than is typically observed over boreal forests and that, in addition to large emissions of methane which cause a warming effect, wetlands also have a cooling effect through emissions of these terpenes. We suggest that new wetlands produced by melting permafrost need to be taken into consideration as sources of secondary aerosol particles when estimating the role of increasing wetland extent in future climate change.
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