10,000 Matching Annotations
  1. Jul 2018
    1. On 2014 Feb 28, William Gunn commented:

      This study has been chosen for replication by the Cancer Biology Reproducibility Project.

      The Cancer Biology Reproducibility Project is a collaboration between the Center for Open Science, Science Exchange, and Mendeley to replicate key experiments from 50 impactful cancer biology studies published between 2010-2012.

      To track the progress of this replication, please visit: https://osf.io/yyqas/

      To learn more about Cancer Biology Reproducibility Project, including the full list of 50 studies, how the studies were chosen, and details about the people who are managing the project, please visit: https://osf.io/e81xl/wiki/home/


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    1. On 2017 Dec 06, University of Kansas School of Nursing Journal Club commented:

      Team Members: Samantha Gibbs, Alyssa Cruz, Annastasia Elliot, Sam Fankhauser, Kelli Fast & Dilnoza Hamraeva [Class of 2018]

      The article was selected because it demonstrates how nurse compassion satisfaction, job satisfaction, stress, burnout, and compassion fatigue are related to nurse caring. This relates to our class discussion about factors that are essential to creating a motivational work environment, specifically intrinsic motivators. As future leader, it is important to recognize what motivates others in order to help them grow as a professional nurse. This article explores the relationship between intrinsic motivation and nurse caring which has not been explored in our course.

      Intrinsic motivation is an essential aspect to caring for patients. If nurses are to fully advocate for and empower patients, they must be intrinsically motivated and have support from nurse leaders on their unit. This article was selected because the research findings confirm that motivational variables in the work environment are positively correlated with nurse caring and compassion. This increased caring results in overall improved patient care and increased patient satisfaction. The nursing leadership in a work environment is essential to cultivating motivation among staff nurses and must not be overlooked. While extrinsic motivation can be a good starting point, it is the goal that all nurses will eventually operate under conditions of intrinsic motivation, meaning that the nurses are coming to work and caring for patient because they find joy in it. The findings of this study illustrate that fostering a nurse’s intrinsic motivation can result in increased nurse caring behaviors, which will therefore increase patient satisfaction (Burston & Stichler, 2010). Burtson and Stichler state that it is the job of nurse managers to, “reawaken the source of satisfaction that nurses derive from caring, while improving their sense of social belonging” (2010, p. 1829).

      As student nurses on the brink of graduation, it is imperative to our professional identity that we understand the systems set in place that motivate workers before accepting a position as an RN. This will allow us as new graduate nurses to feel motivated and empowered in the microsystem and will lead to optimal patient care and increased patient and job satisfaction. Our job satisfaction and intrinsic motivation impacts us personally as well, as we aspire to enjoy work and care for patients in a holistic manner. Even if one is not in a leadership position, future nurses can contribute to the motivational environment by acknowledging coworkers’ achievements and challenging peers to promote growth and life-long learning. If staff nurses and nurse managers promote motivational work environments, the future of nursing practice will naturally begin to foster motivational techniques that will increase both nursing and patient satisfaction as results of improved patient care.

      Burston, P. & Stichler, J. (2010). Nursing work environment and nurse caring: Relationship among motivational factors. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 66(8), 1819-1831. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2648.2010.05336.x


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    1. On 2016 Aug 23, Ben Goldacre commented:

      This trial has the wrong trial registry ID associated with it on PubMed: both in the XML on PubMed, and in the body of the text of the article. The ID given is NCT00028572. We believe the correct ID, which we have found by hand searching, is NCT00028574.

      This comment is being posted as part of the OpenTrials.net project<sup>[1]</sup> , an open database threading together all publicly accessible documents and data on each trial, globally. In the course of creating the database, and matching documents and data sources about trials from different locations, we have identified various anomalies in datasets such as PubMed, and in published papers. Alongside documenting the prevalence of problems, we are also attempting to correct these errors and anomalies wherever possible, by feeding back to the originators. We have corrected this data in the OpenTrials.net database; we hope that this trial’s text and metadata can also be corrected at source, in PubMed and in the accompanying paper.

      Many thanks,

      Jessica Fleminger, Ben Goldacre*

      [1] Goldacre, B., Gray, J., 2016. OpenTrials: towards a collaborative open database of all available information on all clinical trials. Trials 17. doi:10.1186/s13063-016-1290-8

      * Dr Ben Goldacre BA MA MSc MBBS MRCPsych<br> Senior Clinical Research Fellow<br> ben.goldacre@phc.ox.ac.uk<br> www.ebmDataLab.net<br> Centre for Evidence Based Medicine<br> Department of Primary Care Health Sciences<br> University of Oxford<br> Radcliffe Observatory Quarter<br> Woodstock Road<br> Oxford OX2 6GG


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    1. On 2014 Jan 08, Tom Kindlon commented:

      There is evidence that CFS patients don't engage in “boom and bust” activity patterns

      As Maes and Twisk highlight[1], one part of the Harvey and Wessely model is the contention that CFS patients engage in “boom and bust” activity patterns. This claim has been repeated so often by various individuals that it has been seen as fact by some. But is there actual evidence for it?

      What many people may not be aware of is we do have data on the issue. A Dutch study tested a relatively large cohort of CFS patients (n=277) along with 47 healthy controls [2]. The research used actometers to provide an objective measure of activity over 12 days. It found: "Compared to healthy controls, no indication was found that the CFS patients as a group were characterised by a high number of large day-to-day fluctuations in activity."

      References:

      [1] Maes M, Twisk FN. Chronic fatigue syndrome: Harvey and Wessely's (bio)psychosocial model versus a bio(psychosocial) model based on inflammatory and oxidative and nitrosative stress pathways. BMC Med. 2010 Jun 15;8:35.

      [2] van der Werf SP, Prins JB, Vercoulen JH, van der Meer JW, Bleijenberg G. Identifying physical activity patterns in chronic fatigue syndrome using actigraphic assessment. J Psychosom Res. 2000 Nov;49(5):373-9.


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    1. On 2015 Jul 21, Richard Jenner commented:

      Figure S3C of Davidovich C, 2015 shows that the apparent repressive effect of the Xist-RepA stem loop used as a control in Figure 6D of our paper Kanhere A, 2010 is actually due to a mutation of the construct promoter, which we had overlooked. As shown by Davidovich et al, correction of this mutation abolished the apparent repressive activity. Mutations were also found in the short RNA stem loop construct, however, although reduced, the repressive activity of this stem loop remained after these were corrected (Figure S3D of Davidovich C, 2015).


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    1. On 2017 Aug 04, Luis Mauricio T. R. Lima commented:

      This is an interesting article showing human amylin and zinc interaction, and the role of His18 in zinc interaction.

      We have recently reported that murine amylin can also interact with zinc, and this peptide has no His18, and interaction is mediated by several other contacts, and can result in modulation of the amyloid aggregation process. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27693831 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bpc.2016.09.008

      Collectively, these data suggest an universal amyloid behavior of amylin analogues and interaction with zinc, regardless of the presence of proline or His18.


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    1. On 2015 May 22, thomas samaras commented:

      Many conflicting studies exist that show shorter people have low coronary heart disease (CHD). Two review papers summarizing findings showing shorter people have less CHD than taller populations are cited below. For example, populations of short people (less than 5'5")that have virtually no CHD include the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Kalahari Bushmen, Congo Pygmies, and Kitavans. However, with Westernization, some are growing taller and heavier and seeing increases in CHD. Over the last few decades, the Japanese have held the top or third from top ranking for having the lowest CHD in the world.

      Women are shorter than men and have lower life-long mortality from CHD. The argument that smaller blood vessels contribute to CHD doesn't seem to apply to women.

      The World Cancer Research Fund (2007) has attributed our increased height, weight and chronic disease (including CHD)to our Western diet. They reported that today's chronic diseases are a relatively new occurrence. Trowell also reported that pre-Western people are generally free of Western chronic diseases, including CHD. Burkitt evaluated the medical records from almost 1000 hospitals in the non-developed world and found Western diseases (including CHD) were rare.

      The Laron dwarfs in Ecuador have been studied for over 20 years and were found to have no deaths from cancer and diabetes. They also have normal atherosclerosis in spite of being overweight and obese. About 70% of their deaths are from non-age related causes: alcoholism, infections, accidents and neurological disorders.

      It is hard to believe that shorter height per se is related to CHD since many studies show that shorter people live longer. These studies include populations in San Diego, Hawaii, Ohio, Spain, Sardinia, and Okinawa. See longevity studies cited below.

      Sources

      Samaras TT, Elrick H, Storms LH. Is short height really a risk factor for coronary heart disease and stroke mortality? A review. Medical Science Monitor 2004;10:RA63-76.

      Samaras TT. Shorter height is related to lower cardiovascular disease risk--a Narrative Review. Indian Heart Journal. 2013; 65: 66-71.

      He Q, Morris BJ, Grove JS, et al. Shorter men live longer: Association of height with longevity and FOXO3 genotype in American men of Japanese ancestry. PLOS ONE; 2014:9: 1-8.

      Samaras TT. Evidence from eight different types of studies showing that smaller body size is related to greater longevity. Journal of Scientific Research & Reports. 2014;3(16):2150-2160

      Salaris L, Poulain, Samaras. Height and survival at older ages among males born in an in-land village in Sardinia. Biodemography and Social Biology. 2012: 58(1): 1-13.

      Bartke A. Healthy aging: Is smaller better?--A mini-review. Gerontology.2012; 58:337-43.


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    1. On 2014 Sep 06, David Keller commented:

      Are melanoma patients with pre-existing autoimmune disease at increased risk of severe immune reaction to ipilimumab?

      Patients with pre-existing autoimmune disease were excluded from this clinical trial. Even so, Grade 3 or 4 immune-related adverse events occurred in 10 to 15% of patients treated with ipilimumab. Is the rate of immune-related adverse events (IRAE) even higher in patients with pre-existing autoimmune disease who are treated with ipilimumab for melanoma? Clinical trials of immune checkpoint inhibitors all exclude such patients, but post-approval data on adverse events could supply an estimate of their relative risk ratio (RRR) with the following equation:

      RRR = ( IRAEp / IRAEt ) / (prevalence of AIDM)

      where RRR is the relative risk ratio for a severe adverse event in a melanoma patient with preexisting autoimmune disease who is treated with ipilimumab, and IRAEp is the number of immune related adverse events in patients with prior autoimmune disease, IRAEt is the total number of reported immune related adverse events, and the denominator is the prevalence of autoimmune diseases in melanoma patients.

      If patients with preexisting autoimmune disease are found to have a significantly elevated relative risk ratio for severe autoimmune reactions to ipilimumab compared with other melanoma patients, they should have access to that information in order to help them make difficult treatment decisions. Each melanoma patient will have their own cut-off of acceptable values for RRR.

      Recently, an anti-PD1 immune checkpoint inhibitor, pembrolizumab, was approved by the FDA for advanced melanoma patients who have failed on ipilimumab. It has been suggested that the anti-PD1 agents have a milder autoimmune adverse event profile than anti-CTLA-4 agents like ipilimumab (1,2). If this is true, it may be a reason for patients with active autoimmune diseases to be treated with the former, skipping the latter. If the RRR for a patient with preexisting autoimmune disease is found to be 5, 10 or even 20 times higher than for average patients, then this data could be used to justify treating them with pembrolizumab first-line and off-label.

      This question cannot be answered using data from the controlled clinical trials, because patients with active autoimmune diseases were excluded from these studies.

      When the FDA approved Yervoy (ipilimumab) in 2011, they mandated a risk mitigation program, including a database of all reported post-approval adverse reactions to Yervoy. In order to obtain full access to the information in that database, one must file a separate request with the FDA, under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), for each reported adverse reaction. The number of reports of serious adverse events associated with Yervoy filed from March 2011 through September 2014 totals nearly 4000. Since the cost of filing an FOIA request for each report is over $50, the cost to perform a detailed analysis of the entire database of adverse events is over $20,000. This fee is prohibitive, and defeats the purpose of the risk mitigation program. FDA should provide free access to this data, in order to stimulate and facilitate research into the effects of Yervoy on patient populations which were excluded from the controlled clinical trials.

      References

      1: Weber J. Review: anti-CTLA-4 antibody ipilimumab: case studies of clinical response and immune-related adverse events. Oncologist. 2007 Jul;12(7):864-72. Review. PubMed PMID: 17673617.

      2: Fecher LA, Agarwala SS, Hodi FS, Weber JS. Ipilimumab and its toxicities: a multidisciplinary approach. Oncologist. 2013 Jun;18(6):733-43. doi: 10.1634/theoncologist.2012-0483. Epub 2013 Jun 17. Review. PubMed PMID: 23774827; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4063401.


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    1. On 2014 Jan 31, George W Hinkal commented:

      The National Cancer Institute has been investing in the development of an online webportal of curated cancer nanotechnology data called caNanoLab. The numerical data and additional nanomaterial characterizations related to this publication have been added to the database and can be found at:

      https://cananolab.nci.nih.gov/caNanoLab/characterization.do?dispatch=summaryView&sampleId=41418753&page=0&tab=ALL

      https://cananolab.nci.nih.gov/caNanoLab/characterization.do?dispatch=summaryView&sampleId=41418752&page=0&tab=ALL

      The left navigation links on these pages provide information about each sample (under Navigation Tree).

      For general information on how to use caNanoLab, please visit https://cananolab.nci.nih.gov/caNanoLab/home.jsp


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    1. On 2015 Nov 30, S A Ostroumov commented:

      In the paper, it was discovered that the aquatic higher plant (macrophyte) hornwort (other English names: rigid hornwort, coontail, coon's tail; the Latin name: Ceratophyllum demersum) immobilized gold (Au) nanoparticles after their addition to water. This is the first time it was shown that the nanoparticles of gold (Au) in substantial amount bind to the living biomass of the aquatic macrophyte (namely, Ceratophyllum demersum). The concentrations of Au were measured in the samples of the phytomass using neutron activation analysis (NAA). As a result of the binding and/or immobilization of the nanoparticles, the amount of Au in the samples of the phytomass increased manifold (by a factor of 430) above the background level of gold in the plant tissues. The increase was by two orders of magnitude. The new data added some new information to the modern vision of the multifunctional role of the biota in the migration of elements in aquatic ecosystems, and water self-purification. Also, the result added new information to the studies of interactions of Au with organisms that may contribute to new biotechnologies (namely, phytotechnologies to remove heavy metals from water). DOI: 10.1134/S0012496610020158. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/44634488_The_aquatic_macrophyte_Ceratophyllum_demersum_immobilizes_Au_nanoparticles_after_their_addition_to_water;

      Some additional key words: nanomaterials, sorption, biosorption, immobilization, environmental chemistry, biogeochemistry, water quality,


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    1. On 2018 Jan 03, Denise N Slenter commented:

      The information captured in Figure 1 and 2 of this article, is available as a machine readable pathway at the WikiPathways database (https://www.wikipathways.org/index.php/Pathway:WP3933). Figure 3 is available at WikiPathways as well (https://www.wikipathways.org/index.php/Pathway:WP4195). These pathways can be used for data analysis in e.g. Pathvisio (https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1004085) and Cytoscape (https://doi.org/10.1101/gr.1239303).


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    1. On 2016 Aug 30, Ben Goldacre commented:

      This trial has the wrong trial registry ID associated with it on PubMed. The ID given is NCT00350855 - the correct ID is NCT00350389. This has been corrected in a subsequent correction published in the originating journal, but not in the PubMed metadata.

      This comment is being posted as part of the OpenTrials.net project<sup>[1]</sup> , an open database threading together all publicly accessible documents and data on each trial, globally. In the course of creating the database, and matching documents and data sources about trials from different locations, we have identified various anomalies in datasets such as PubMed, and in published papers. Alongside documenting the prevalence of problems, we are also attempting to correct these errors and anomalies wherever possible, by feeding back to the originators. We have corrected this data in the OpenTrials.net database and this ID has been corrected within the journal itself; we hope that this trial’s text and metadata can also be corrected in PubMed.

      Many thanks,

      Jessica Fleminger, Ben Goldacre*

      [1] Goldacre, B., Gray, J., 2016. OpenTrials: towards a collaborative open database of all available information on all clinical trials. Trials 17. doi:10.1186/s13063-016-1290-8 PMID: 27056367

      * Dr Ben Goldacre BA MA MSc MBBS MRCPsych<br> Senior Clinical Research Fellow<br> ben.goldacre@phc.ox.ac.uk<br> www.ebmDataLab.net<br> Centre for Evidence Based Medicine<br> Department of Primary Care Health Sciences<br> University of Oxford<br> Radcliffe Observatory Quarter<br> Woodstock Road<br> Oxford OX2 6GG


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    1. On 2013 Oct 28, John Cannell commented:

      The control group in this study was flawed. The authors used children undergoing outpatient tonsillectomies as controls. Such children are likely to have low 25(OH)D levels.

      Seventy-eight percent of Auckland children undergoing tonsillectomy had vitamin D insufficiency.

      Reid D, Morton R, Salkeld L, Bartley J.Vitamin D and tonsil disease--preliminary observations. Int J Pediatr Otorhinolaryngol. 2011 Feb;75(2):261-4.

      Also, 25(OH)D levels of children with ear infections were about one-half that of community controls.

      Cayir A, Turan MI, Ozkan O, Cayir Y, Kaya A, Davutoglu S, Ozkan B.Serum vitamin D levels in children with recurrent otitis media. Eur Arch Otorhinolaryngol. 2013 Mar 30.

      In addition, in a prospective study, lower serum 25(OH)D levels were associated with increased risk of laboratory-confirmed respiratory tract infections RTI in children.

      Science M, Maguire JL, Russell ML, Smieja M, Walter SD, Loeb M. Low serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D level and risk of upper respiratory tract infection in children and adolescents. Clin Infect Dis. 2013 Aug;57(3):392-7.

      As Molloy et al did not use community controls, they did not find lower 25(OH)D levels in children with ASD compared to controls but 3 studies of ASD and 25(OH)D using community controls have found significant differences.

      Gong ZL, Luo CM, Wang L, Shen L, Wei F, Tong RJ, Liu Y.Serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels in Chinese children with autism spectrum disorders. Neuroreport. 2013 Oct 1.

      Meguid NA, Hashish AF, Anwar M, Sidhom G.Reduced serum levels of 25-hydroxy and 1,25-dihydroxy vitamin D in Egyptian children with autism. J Altern Complement Med. 2010 Jun;16(6):641-5.

      Mostafa GA, Al-Ayadhi LY.Reduced serum concentrations of 25-hydroxy vitamin D in children with autism: relation to autoimmunity. J Neuroinflammation. 2012 Aug 17;9:201.


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    1. On 2016 Aug 23, Ben Goldacre commented:

      This trial has the wrong trial registry ID associated with it on PubMed: both in the XML on PubMed, and in the originating journal article. The ID given is NCT00527782. We believe the correct ID, which we have found by hand searching, is NCT00527787.

      This comment is being posted as part of the OpenTrials.net project<sup>[1]</sup> , an open database threading together all publicly accessible documents and data on each trial, globally. In the course of creating the database, and matching documents and data sources about trials from different locations, we have identified various anomalies in datasets such as PubMed, and in published papers. Alongside documenting the prevalence of problems, we are also attempting to correct these errors and anomalies wherever possible, by feeding back to the originators. We have corrected this data in the OpenTrials.net database; we hope that this trial’s text and metadata can also be corrected at source, in PubMed and in the accompanying paper.

      Many thanks,

      Jessica Fleminger, Ben Goldacre*

      [1] Goldacre, B., Gray, J., 2016. OpenTrials: towards a collaborative open database of all available information on all clinical trials. Trials 17. doi:10.1186/s13063-016-1290-8 PMID: 27056367

      * Dr Ben Goldacre BA MA MSc MBBS MRCPsych<br> Senior Clinical Research Fellow<br> ben.goldacre@phc.ox.ac.uk<br> www.ebmDataLab.net<br> Centre for Evidence Based Medicine<br> Department of Primary Care Health Sciences<br> University of Oxford<br> Radcliffe Observatory Quarter<br> Woodstock Road<br> Oxford OX2 6GG


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    1. On 2016 Aug 23, Ben Goldacre commented:

      This trial has the wrong trial registry ID associated with it on PubMed: both in the XML on PubMed, and in the originating journal article. The ID given is NCT00122184. We believe the correct ID, which we have found by hand searching, is NCT00132184.

      This comment is being posted as part of the OpenTrials.net project<sup>[1]</sup> , an open database threading together all publicly accessible documents and data on each trial, globally. In the course of creating the database, and matching documents and data sources about trials from different locations, we have identified various anomalies in datasets such as PubMed, and in published papers. Alongside documenting the prevalence of problems, we are also attempting to correct these errors and anomalies wherever possible, by feeding back to the originators. We have corrected this data in the OpenTrials.net database; we hope that this trial’s text and metadata can also be corrected at source, in PubMed and in the accompanying paper.

      Many thanks,

      Jessica Fleminger, Ben Goldacre*

      [1] Goldacre, B., Gray, J., 2016. OpenTrials: towards a collaborative open database of all available information on all clinical trials. Trials 17. doi:10.1186/s13063-016-1290-8

      * Dr Ben Goldacre BA MA MSc MBBS MRCPsych<br> Senior Clinical Research Fellow<br> ben.goldacre@phc.ox.ac.uk<br> www.ebmDataLab.net<br> Centre for Evidence Based Medicine<br> Department of Primary Care Health Sciences<br> University of Oxford<br> Radcliffe Observatory Quarter<br> Woodstock Road<br> Oxford OX2 6GG


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    1. On 2016 Aug 23, Ben Goldacre commented:

      This trial has the wrong trial registry ID associated with it on PubMed: both in the XML on PubMed, and in the originating journal article. The ID given is NCT0027813. We believe the correct ID, which we have found by hand searching, is NCT00278135.

      This comment is being posted as part of the OpenTrials.net project<sup>[1]</sup> , an open database threading together all publicly accessible documents and data on each trial, globally. In the course of creating the database, and matching documents and data sources about trials from different locations, we have identified various anomalies in datasets such as PubMed, and in published papers. Alongside documenting the prevalence of problems, we are also attempting to correct these errors and anomalies wherever possible, by feeding back to the originators. We have corrected this data in the OpenTrials.net database; we hope that this trial’s text and metadata can also be corrected at source, in PubMed and in the accompanying paper.

      Many thanks,

      Jessica Fleminger, Ben Goldacre*

      [1] Goldacre, B., Gray, J., 2016. OpenTrials: towards a collaborative open database of all available information on all clinical trials. Trials 17. doi:10.1186/s13063-016-1290-8 PMID: 27056367

      * Dr Ben Goldacre BA MA MSc MBBS MRCPsych<br> Senior Clinical Research Fellow<br> ben.goldacre@phc.ox.ac.uk<br> www.ebmDataLab.net<br> Centre for Evidence Based Medicine<br> Department of Primary Care Health Sciences<br> University of Oxford<br> Radcliffe Observatory Quarter<br> Woodstock Road<br> Oxford OX2 6GG


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    1. On 2016 Oct 13, Ilana Kolodkin-Gal commented:

      The supporting material for this paper was corrected, and the source data were provided to the editors of the Science journal. As for D-amino acids and biofilm formation: Non-canonical D-amino acids are small molecules interfering with cross-linking and transglycosylation of the peptidoglycan (Lam et al., 2009; Cava et al., 2011), and have been shown to trigger biofilm disassembly (Kolodkin-Gal et al., 2010), without affecting planktonic growth. This observation was later reproduced in various model organisms, such as Staphylococcus aureus (Hochbaum et al., 2011; Sanchez et al., 2013), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (Yu et al., 2012; Sanchez et al., 2014), the plant pathogen Xanthomonas citri (Li and Wang, 2014) , Escherichia coli (Xing et al., 2015) and in mixed biofilms (Si et al., 2014), as well as in other models published in numerous more recent publications. Furthermore, in our group we have generated so far two independent peer-reviewed publications clarifying the mode of action of D-aa for biofilm inhibition: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1758-2229.12346/abstract http://www.jove.com/video/54612/methodologies-for-studying-b-subtilis-biofilms-as- Lastly, we established a consistent and robust experimental framework to study the effect of these small molecules biofilm inhibitors (Bucher et al., 2016).


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    2. On 2016 Sep 19, Morten Oksvold commented:

      Please note that a rather extensive correction was published 7 December 2011: "The wrong images were mistakenly presented for day 3 for the wild-type and the racX ylmE double mutant in figure S4. The original and correct images are now shown. Also, the wrong image was presented for the mixture of L-amino acids in panel B of fig. S13 and has now been removed."

      In 2013, the Losick group published results showing that D-amino acids inhibited bacterial growth and the expression of biofilm matrix genes and that the strain they originally used to study biofilm formation (B. subtilis) has a mutation in the D-tyrosyl-tRNA deacylase gene, an enzyme that prevents the misincorporation of D-amino acids into protein (Leiman et al., 2013). In a B. subtilis strain, which has a working copy of this gene, D–amino acids did not inhibit biofilm formation. The conclusion from their study was that "the susceptibility of B. subtilis to the biofilm-inhibitory effects of D-amino acids is largely, if not entirely, due to their toxic effects on protein synthesis.

      Does that mean that they no longer see D-amino acids as a specific mechanism to disassemble biofilms in B. subtilis but rather as nonspecific inhibitors of growth in some genetic backgrounds?

      Leiman et al. (2013) make no comment on the ability of D-amino acids to inhibit biofilm formation in staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa, as claimed in this article. The whole concept of biofilm dissasembly by D-amino acids therefore appears confusing.

      It was recently published an article showing that D-amino acids do not inhibit biofilm formation in Staphylococcus aureus (Sarkar S and Pires MM, 2015).


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    1. On 2013 Oct 28, Jamie Horder commented:

      A historical note: in January 2009, shortly before this study was due to be completed, it was terminated early on the instructions of the local Research Ethics Committee. The reason for this was that rimonabant had just been withdrawn from the European market due to concerns over the high prevalence of depression in users - ironically, the very phenomenon that motivated this study.


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    1. On 2016 Nov 20, Morten Oksvold commented:

      An investigation committee at Wayne State University (WSU) recommends that 42 articles from Fazlul Sarkar to be retracted (report finished August 31, 2015). This article represents one of them.

      This information was published by Retraction Watch (November 17, 2016) and you can find a link to the full report here:

      http://retractionwatch.com/2016/11/17/details-of-investigative-report-into-sarkar-released-by-aclu/

      This article should therefore no longer be cited.


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    1. On 2015 Dec 24, Tom Kindlon commented:

      Step test data were subsequently published

      "There were no between group differences in any of the step test measures at 20 or 70 weeks"(1).

      Reference:

      Wearden AJ1, Emsley R. Mediators of the effects on fatigue of pragmatic rehabilitation for chronic fatigue syndrome. J Consult Clin Psychol. 2013 Oct;81(5):831-8. doi: 10.1037/a0033561.


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    2. On 2013 Dec 31, Tom Kindlon commented:

      I had a response published: FINE trial for CFS. Missing data

      BMJ. 2010 Jun 9;340:c2990. doi: 10.1136/bmj.c2990. FINE trial for CFS. Missing data. Kindlon T. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20534661 Kindlon T, 2010

      My original e-letter from which this was drawn can be read here: http://www.bmj.com/rapid-response/2011/11/02/missing-data


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    1. On 2016 Aug 24, Ben Goldacre commented:

      This trial has the wrong trial registry ID associated with it on PubMed: both in the XML on PubMed, and in the originating journal article. The ID given is NCT00018255. We believe the correct ID, which we have found by hand searching, is NCT01068210.

      This comment is being posted as part of the OpenTrials.net project<sup>[1]</sup> , an open database threading together all publicly accessible documents and data on each trial, globally. In the course of creating the database, and matching documents and data sources about trials from different locations, we have identified various anomalies in datasets such as PubMed, and in published papers. Alongside documenting the prevalence of problems, we are also attempting to correct these errors and anomalies wherever possible, by feeding back to the originators. We have corrected this data in the OpenTrials.net database; we hope that this trial’s text and metadata can also be corrected at source, in PubMed and in the accompanying paper.

      Many thanks,

      Jessica Fleminger, Ben Goldacre*

      [1] Goldacre, B., Gray, J., 2016. OpenTrials: towards a collaborative open database of all available information on all clinical trials. Trials 17. doi:10.1186/s13063-016-1290-8 PMID: 27056367

      * Dr Ben Goldacre BA MA MSc MBBS MRCPsych<br> Senior Clinical Research Fellow<br> ben.goldacre@phc.ox.ac.uk<br> www.ebmDataLab.net<br> Centre for Evidence Based Medicine<br> Department of Primary Care Health Sciences<br> University of Oxford<br> Radcliffe Observatory Quarter<br> Woodstock Road<br> Oxford OX2 6GG


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    1. On 2017 Apr 23, Md. Shahidul Islam commented:

      In human beta cells TRPM5 is almost absent while its closest relative TRPM4 is abundant. Marabita F, and Islam MS. Pancreas. 2017 Jan;46(1):97-101. Expression of Transient Receptor Potential Channels in the Purified Human Pancreatic β-Cells. PMID: 27464700 DOI: 10.1097/MPA.0000000000000685


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    1. On 2016 Nov 18, Morten Oksvold commented:

      An investigation committee at Wayne State University (WSU) recommends that 42 articles from Fazlul Sarkar to be retracted (report finished August 31, 2015). This article represents one of them.

      This information was published by Retraction Watch (November 17, 2016) and you can find a link to the full report here:

      http://retractionwatch.com/2016/11/17/details-of-investigative-report-into-sarkar-released-by-aclu/

      This article should therefore no longer be cited.


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    1. On 2017 Jan 20, Andy Collings commented:

      A subset of experimental results from this study were the focus of a replication attempt as part of the Reproducibility Project: Cancer Biology (https://osf.io/e81xl/wiki/home/). The experimental designs and protocols were reviewed and approved in a Registered Report (http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.06959) and the results of the experiments were published in a Replication Study (http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.17584).


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    1. On 2017 Aug 05, Fernando Castro-Chavez commented:

      Dear Reader, Here is where I did the discovery for the first time that by using the rotating circular classic representation of the genetic code, a series of resonances were able to be found, such as that every 90 degrees we had the hydrophobic amino acids per each quadrant, and the same applies when studying the rest of the properties of the amino acids, there is resonance for the basic, and for the hydrophobic amino acids, as well as for the phosphorilatable ones. This lead me to discover the rules of variation, that equivalent amino acids, produced by equivalent codons allow for the equally functional diversity of proteins and enzymes making all the wonderful array of varieties within each group of compatible organisms, which are the ones capable to interbreed producing a fertile offspring. Sincerely, Fernando Castro-Chavez.


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    1. On 2014 Sep 06, Ryan Radecki commented:

      Post-publication commentary: "The Most Dangerous Holiday!"

      Here in the United States, it is Labor Day – a Federal holiday established in 1886 by U.S. President Grover Cleveland. We, apparently, have Canada to thank for this innovation.

      But, what was actually news to me – Labor Day is actually the highest-volume holiday for pediatric trauma, outpacing all other holidays. I’d have thought 4th of July – with it’s various explosive devices – would be the most popular pediatric trauma holiday, but, between 1997 and 2006, Labor Day takes the lead, followed by Memorial Day, and 4th of July as a close third. Halloween, Easter, Thanksgiving, New Year’s and Christmas round out the list, in that order.

      http://www.emlitofnote.com/2014/09/the-most-dangerous-holiday.html


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    1. On 2014 Feb 13, David Keller commented:

      The April 2010 Resident's Clinic discussed a 38-year-old woman with a history of gastric bypass who presented with profound anemia due to severe copper deficiency. She was noted to have an abnormally high zinc level. Her copper deficiency was attributed mainly to malabsorption due to her bowel surgery, and it was also noted that high zinc levels may induce copper deficiency. The question then arises as to why her zinc level was so high. The only clue is that the patient "had a history of frequent upper respiratory infections". Unfortunately, she was not asked whether she had used any of the over-the-counter zinc lozenge products which are sold as alternative sore throat remedies (for example "Cold-Eze"). Clinicians should not neglect to inquire about such non-prescription remedies or supplements when taking a patient's medication history, as important information may be learned.


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    1. On 2014 May 09, Madhusudana Girija Sanal commented:

      It is all about numbers! It is statistics which defines what cancer is! One reason is that all definitions are a matter convenience for humans to classify, work or learn. Definitions quite often cannot be ‘black and white’ and hence statistical approaches are wise. The author note that the sixth hall mark of six hallmarks defined by Hannan and Weinberg, that is “the ability to invade and metastasis” is the only ‘real’ hallmark of cancer. However it is known that everything moves around, invade and proliferate need not be a cancer- example is endometriosis. Giant-cell tumor of the bone is considered benign but can spread to other parts including the lungs. Moreover during embryonic development different cell lineages compete and invade each other. Winners proliferate secrete autocrine factors, attracts blood vessels, force defeated cells to apoptosis or even ‘eat’ them up. This is not cancer! So what can be the hallmark or defining features of cancer? What I am proposing is a preliminary outline which may be further modified by “Wiki” efforts to make it more accurate. The following conditions needs to be satisfied to define a cancer: 1) Non physiological rate of cell division. Non physiological rate is defined as a growth rate which is a statistical outlier spatially and temporally for a given type of cell and organism. 2) A change, genetic or epigenetic with reference to the healthy genome which is a statistical outlier spatially and temporally for a given cell type and organism. Healthy reference genome and epigenome may be defined as the genome of individuals which satisfy two conditions a) falling within the statistically defined normal range of anatomical and physiological parameters for a population b) demonstrated longevity above 99.9 percentile of the population of a given organism.

      Cancer is a dynamic process-continuous evolution and selection. It is often,but not mandatory (at least theoretically) to be started by or seeded by a mutation and 'nurtured' or maintained by epigenetics. This is because epigenetic modification are faster as well as reversible. The effect of environment is mediated often (through cytokines, microRNA or even by physical factors) through epigenetic adaptations.Sooner or later more mutations and epigenetic changes accumulate during evolution and selection. This process is accelerated by chemotherapy (especially when using alkylating agents) radiation. Very specific and interesting mutations can evolve during targeted therapy (example-nilotinib).


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    1. On 2014 Sep 03, Matthew Katz commented:

      This phase III trial is a classic example of how combined modality therapy (radiation combined with medical therapy) can provide effective cure for laryngeal cancer with an organ-preserving approach that can mean a major difference in quality of life. Surgery still may be needed, but for patients with a good response chemoradiation can be an effective nonsurgical treatment. More recent studies have suggested that doing the two treatments together (concurrent therapy) is superior though the toxicity may also be higher Forastiere AA, 2003


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    1. On 2016 Jun 08, Jafar Kolahi commented:

      This article has been criticized at: Kolahi J, Bang H, Park JJ, Desbiens NA. CONSORT 2010 and Controversies Regarding Assessment of Blindness in RCTs. Dent Hypotheses 2010;1:99-105. doi:10.5436/j.dehy. 2010.1.00016.

      Full text is available via: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jafar_Kolahi/publication/49583226_CONSORT_2010_and_Controversies_Regarding_Assessment_of_Blindness_in_RCTs/links/0f2cd8bca299367d1640cfd0.pdf


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    1. On 2013 Dec 28, Tsuyoshi Miyakawa commented:

      The finding of elevated D2High receptors in the CaMKIIalpha heterozygous knockout mice is quite interesting, regarding the possiblity that these mice may serve as an animal model of schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. We pointed out the possibility in our paper before(Yamasaki N, 2008), though it was not cited in this paper. I'd like to add that the same KO mice also show decreased cellular activity in dentate gyrus, while it is increased in CA1 in hippocampus (Hattori S, 2013), which is also consistent with the hippocampus dysfunction hypothesis of schizophrenia (Tamminga CA, 2010).


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    1. On 2017 Apr 12, Antony J. Williams commented:

      Egon, Unfortunately I am no longer involved with either ChemSpider or the Spectral Game. The spectral game was picked up by Andy Lang for maintenance purposes and while there have been a lot more data added to ChemSpider I am not aware of anyone there engaging with Andy to provide an update to the data. The intention was always to provide access to the data via service based calls so that updates could be ongoing but I am not aware that this was implemented and made available to serve the game. I will follow up with people at RSC and make them aware of this discussion and encourage them to work with Andy Lang if they see it to be of value. In terms of a new spectral viewer to replace the applet the Javascript viewer from Bob Hanson via the JMol approach would be most appropriate I think. Cheers


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    1. On 2015 Aug 27, Zhicheng Lin commented:

      The evidence for unconscious activation of the prefrontal no-go network is unwarranted because the activation is unlikely to be unconscious in the study. This study underestimated the true level of awareness as recently revealed in a phenomenon called "priming of awareness" (Lin and Murray, 2014, 2015).

      Refs: Lin, Z., Murray, S. O. (2014). Priming of awareness or how not to measure visual awareness. Journal of Vision, 14(1), 1–17. Lin, Z., Murray, S. O. (2015). Automaticity of unconscious response inhibition: Comment on Chiu and Aron (2014). Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 144(1), 244–254.

      Direct links to the refs: http://jov.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2295565 http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/xge/144/1/244/


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    1. On 2014 Sep 01, Matthew Katz commented:

      This Phase II trial by RTOG demonstrated the ability to safely deliver ablative radiation doses to offer excellent local tumor control. It has transformed the prognosis for patients with medically inoperable non-small cell lung cancer. Whether stereotactic radiation can be an alternative to surgery is currently under study on protocol. But this trials clearly supports a role for stereotactic radiation in the body as well as its known role for treating brain tumors.

      Improvements have been made in dose calculation and more data now support the findings of RTOG 0236. Further study is needed to fine tune best dose schedules, technique and immobilization. Whether there is any role in node positive patients remains to be determined.


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    1. On 2015 Mar 13, Martine Crasnier-Mednansky commented:

      Escherichia coli cells growing on excess glucose (Fig. 3, Environment G) do not consume acetate after glucose depletion (the acetate switch occurs before glucose is fully depleted). In fact, cells utilize both glucose and acetate during entry into the stationary phase of growth (see Fig. 1A in Wolfe AJ, 2005). Failure to assimilate acetate before glucose depletion was reported for a specific mutant strain and resulted in a diauxic type of growth (Nyström T, 1993).

      Acetate utilization by acetate-adapted cells is not diminished by glucose addition (Lowry OH, 1971). Furthermore glucose utilization by acetate-adapted cells is inhibited by acetate. It is therefore questionable whether acetate-adapted cells are `adapting´ to glucose when transferred to a medium containing a large excess of acetate (Fig. 3, Environment GA). In this context, the reversible phosphotransfer reaction between phosphoacetate kinase and the phosphotransferase system (PTS), originally proposed by Fox DK, 1986 but never established in vivo, should be physiologically relevant as to regulate the rate of sugar transport by the PTS and thus the cAMP level.


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    1. On 2013 Nov 24, John Sotos commented:

      In his letter describing recently-introduced Congressional legislation to establish “healthcare innovation zones” (1), Dr. Kirch of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) listed his financial disclosures as “none.” I believe this is misleading.

      Dr. Kirch did not disclose that the AAMC proposed such zones (2). As a federally registered lobbying organization that has spent $100,000-$400,000 annually on lobbying activities since 1999 (3), common sense dictates that one of the AAMC’s “products” is legislation.

      Thus, Dr. Kirch should have disclosed his organization’s role in the product his letter described, just as he would have disclosed if his organization had invented a new drug or device expected to benefit the organization or its affiliates. At the very least, such disclosure would have helped the JAMA editors realize he was hyping something his organization helped create.

      (1) Kirch DG. The Healthcare Innovation Zone: a platform for true reform. JAMA. 2010 Mar 3;303(9):874-875. Pubmed 20197534. doi: 10.1001/jama.2010.224.

      (2) “Rep. Schwartz introduces legislation to establish AAMC-proposed health care innovation zones.” Press Release, Association of American Medical Colleges, July 10, 2009. Online at: http://www.aamc.org/newsroom/pressrel/2009/090710.htm — accessed April 4, 2010.

      (3) Lobbying Disclosure Act Database: http://soprweb.senate.gov/index.cfm?event=choosefields — Searched on “registrant name” = “association of american medical colleges” on April 4, 2010.


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    1. On 2016 Jul 01, Anne Niknejad commented:

      'It has been shown that apoptotic stimuli induce nuclear accumulation of GSK3β colocalising it with p53 [15]. This study reported that there was no nuclear accumulation of GSK3β after DNA damage (induced by camptothecin treatment) but rather an exclusive activation of the nuclear pool with no activation of cytosolic pools. The authors showed that p53 coimmunoprecipitates with GSK3β from nuclear fractions after camptothecin treatment.'

      Actually the reference 15 is wrong, no 'p53' mention, no camptothecin treatment (but staurosporine treatment)

      http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=11495916

      The correct reference could be

      http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=12048243

      (not cited in References)


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    1. On 2014 Jan 08, Tom Kindlon commented:

      Early diagnosis of CFS/ME has been shown to lead to a better prognosis

      It was interesting to see the various views expressed by GPs in this paper[1]. However I think a couple of useful points could have been added. There is much discussion in the paper about whether a label of CFS/ME is useful or not. The authors refer to NICE guidelines which "emphasise the importance of a definitive diagnosis"[2]. However, I think it would have been useful to add some direct evidence on this issue.

      For example, research published by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) which found that an earlier diagnosis led to a better prognosis[3]. This prompted the CDC to launch a two-pronged awareness drive aimed at both health professionals and the general public - the tag line for the latter was, "Get informed. Get diagnosed. Get help."[4].

      A UK study found that the longer the interval between a patient falling ill and getting a diagnosis, the greater the likelihood that they would become severely affected. [5]

      The authors mention the issue of CFS/ME being managed in primary care. It is important for GPs to know that GPs encouraging patients to do a graded exercise programme is associated with a higher rate of adverse reactions. For example, a survey which asked patients about their experiences of treatments over the previous three years found that 45% reported being made worse by a graded exercise therapy (GET) programme overseen by their GP, compared to 31% who reported being made worse by a GET under a NHS specialist and 29% of those who did a GET in other circumstances[6]. The NICE guidelines do not recommend that a GP oversee such an approach[2].

      References:

      [1] Chew-Graham C, Dowrick C, Wearden A, Richardson V, Peters S. Making the diagnosis of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Myalgic Encephalitis in primary care: a qualitative study. BMC Fam Pract. 2010 Feb 23;11:16.

      [2] NICE CG 53 Chronic fatigue syndrome/Myalgic encephalomyelitis (or encephalopathy) guideline.

      [3] Nisenbaum R, Jones JF, Unger ER, Reyes M and Reeves WC. A population-based study of the clinical course of chronic fatigue syndrome. Health and Quality of Life Outcomes 2003;1:49-58.

      [4] CDC Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Awareness Campaign. http://cdc.gov/cfs/awareness.htm [Last accessed: 31 March, 2010]

      [5] Pheby D and Saffron L. Risk factors for severe ME/CFS. Biology and Medicine (2009); 1 (4):50-74. http://biolmedonline.com/Articles/vol1_4_50-74.pdf [Last accessed: 31 March, 2010]

      [6] Action for M.E. and AYME Survey 2008 Results http://afme.wordpress.com/5-treatments-and-symptoms/ [Last accessed: 31 March, 2010]


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    1. On 2017 Jun 27, Andy Collings commented:

      A subset of experimental results from this study were the focus of a replication attempt as part of the Reproducibility Project: Cancer Biology (https://osf.io/e81xl/wiki/home/). The experimental designs and protocols were reviewed and approved in a Registered Report (http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.12626) and the results of the experiments were published in a Replication Study (http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.26030).


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    1. On 2014 Nov 19, Amanda Capes-Davis commented:

      Cell lines that are known to be misidentified are now also hosted in the NCBI BioSample database at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/biosample/.

      The list of known misidentified cell lines continues to be updated by ICLAC and has a dedicated webpage at http://iclac.org/databases/cross-contaminations/.

      Many thanks to Tanya Barrett and NCBI staff for their work in making the data more widely accessible.


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    2. On 2014 Jul 29, Amanda Capes-Davis commented:

      Neil, in answer to your question, we have been distributing our list of misidentified cell lines since 2009. Initially we did not have a dedicated website for distribution and I was concerned about the security of the data when people could not come back to check the data against a primary source. We now have a website up and running as a primary distribution point so an open source approach is much more feasible.

      The committee is a voluntary one, so we offer the data using whatever tools we have available. Hosting in the NCBI BioSample database is a fantastic step forward for us.


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    1. On 2014 Dec 11, Ibrahim Masoodi commented:

      Ulcerative colitis has remitting and relapsing course and is affecting millions around the globe.The biomarkers can predict the severity in a non invasive manner .There is a growing need to identify more useful biomarkers in order to predict an impending relapse . We found serum CRP and fecal markers MPO , Lactoferrin very useful.These correlated with endoscopic severity and disease activity


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    1. On 2017 Jul 07, Morten Oksvold commented:

      This article should have been retracted after an investigation by The University of Maryland found this article to contain "compromised" data (a total of 26 articles in 11 journals were affected). The journal Cancer Research was informed in August 2016, according to Retraction Watch.

      http://retractionwatch.com/2017/04/26/university-asked-numerous-retractions-eight-months-later-three-journals-done-nothing/


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    1. On 2014 Jan 07, Brett Snodgrass commented:

      Dear Author,

      Thank you for the excellent article.

      Please provide your kind attention to the distinction between the Thebesian veins and the vessels of Wearn.

      Please consider the following post and associated links to PubMed related to the heart's vasculature. https://twitter.com/BrettSnodgrass1/status/417049983028690944

      Comments and suggestions are welcome.

      Thank you kindly.


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    1. On 2016 Nov 28, David Juurlink commented:

      I thank Dr. Tucker for this comment. Upon re-examination, the quote above (taken from Vowles KE, 2015) does not accurately reflect the methodology of the Cochrane review. I have shared this observation with the quote's author. I remain concerned, however, about the generalizability of the review's conclusions regarding the risk of iatrogenic opioid addiction, which are at odds not only with a large body of clinical experience but also with two recent, comprehensive systematic reviews (Chou R, 2015, Vowles KE, 2015) that conclude opioid addiction occurs far more frequently than this review suggests.


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    2. On 2016 Nov 26, John Tucker commented:

      There is an old saying "If it sounds too good (bad) to be true, it probably isn't". Thus my curiosity was raised when Dr. Juurlink, quoting a third party rather than the Cochrane Review itself, implied that the low rate of addiction reported in this review is an artifact of arbitrarily imputing zero addiction rate to studies in which it was not reported.

      Reference to the original text shows that Dr. Juurlink's statement and the letter he quotes are both incorrect.

      The actual content of the review is below:

      "Six studies [of 26 total] specifically stated that no cases of addiction were observed, and 18 studies did not report whether addiction was observed.... Among the studies where addiction or addiction and abuse rates are specifically reported, the total event rate is 0.27% (7/ 2613)."

      The Review further states that if the rate in the remaining trials (which were much smaller) is assumed to be zero, the addiction rate falls by about half.

      Thus in contrast to Dr. Juurlink's implied statement, the conclusion of this meta analysis, that addiction rates in chronic pain are quite low among appropriately screened patients, is NOT contingent upon unrealistic assumptions.


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    3. On 2016 Nov 06, David Juurlink commented:

      Regarding the risk of addiction during chronic opioid therapy, readers of this review are directed to the correspondence associated with Vowles KE, 2015, in which the authors note: "Importantly, of the 26 studies reviewed by Noble et al., only 2 (7.7%) reported rates of opioid addiction and those authors imputed (page 8) an addiction rate of zero in the other 24 studies (92.3%). Although there is clear utility in their broader findings, we would urge caution in assuming absence of any particular phenomenon simply because it is not reported."


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    1. On 2013 Nov 24, John Sotos commented:

      Medical educators I’ve known have often cited the case histories in the Journal‘s CPCs as model presentations of clinical information.

      Unfortunately, case 2-2010 jeopardizes this reputation by saying the patient experienced “an episode of pain in his left arm … that radiated to his heart” (1).

      Medical trainees should not emulate this statement, for three reasons:

      First, it is not believable. The complex innervation of thoracic structures prevents localization of pain to any internal organ.

      Second, it is ambiguous. Many patients believe pain near the left breast is “heart pain” (2), whereas physicians generally associate retrosternal discomfort with cardiac ischemia.

      Third, even if this statement were a direct quote from the patient, it violates the precept to “question [the patient] until sufficient details are obtained to categorize the symptom in medical terms” (3).

      No institution of medical education can rest on its laurels. I hope The Journal will re-dedicate itself to maintaining its pre-eminence in this vital field.

      (1) Isselbacher EM, Kligerman SJ, Lam KM, Hurtado RM. Case records of the Massachusetts General Hospital. Case 2-2010. A 47-year-old man with abdominal and flank pain. N Engl J Med. 2010 Jan 21;362(3):254-62. Pubmed 20089976 doi: 10.1056/NEJMcpc0905548.

      (2) Wood P. Diseases of the Heart and Circulation. 2nd ed. London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1956. Page 4.

      (3) DeGowin RL. DeGowin & DeGowin’s Bedside Diagnostic Examination. 5th ed. New York: Macmillan, 1987. Page 24.


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    1. On 2016 Aug 08, Stuart RAY commented:

      The single line "Erratum in Correction [Hepatology. 2015]" above does not capture the complex recent history of this publication. That correction notes a 12-fold (person-years vs. person-months) calculation error that, once corrected, eliminates any statistical difference in HCC rates between those with HBsAg loss and those with HCC persistence.

      Fortunately, an alert and astute reader (Chee-Kiat Tan, Singapore General Hospital) called attention to the important implications of this error in a Letter to the Editor [which, I hope, will be linked from this Pubmed record]. The authors provided a fairly terse reply.

      In a notably rare Editorial response to Tan's letter, Michael Nathanson and Norah Terrault note that a key conclusion of the report is arguably strengthened by the correction: that HCC can occur in persons even after HBsAg loss, even in the absence of cirrhosis.

      The importance of vigilance for HCC in persons with HBV infection (even in the absence of detectable HBsAg) is amplified by this correction; careful reading of the literature is also emphasized.


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    1. On 2014 Feb 07, Saša Branković commented:

      This theory is a (probably unintentional) plagiarism. Because, Manfred Velden (1974) had introduced the uncertainty (entropy) processing hypothesis of the orienting response and Saša Branković (2001) implemented the model into the theory of motivation, which has been called the theory of informational needs.


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    1. On 2013 Nov 01, Darren L Dahly commented:

      I am currently drafting a paper following from this work that uses mixture modelling to cluster study participants based on these socio-economic indicators. A poster of the preliminary work can be found here. http://f1000.com/posters/browse/summary/1089836 It offers a different perspective from this previous paper that focused on results from linear models.


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    1. On 2015 Oct 07, Peter Good commented:

      Shaw recently presented compelling evidence that acetaminophen (Tylenol) depletes glutathione in autism, asthma, and other disorders: “The characteristic loss of Purkinje cells in the brains of people with autism is consistent with depletion of brain glutathione due to excess acetaminophen usage, which leads to premature brain Purkinje cell death.”[1] Shaw observed that Cuba vaccinates all their children, especially against measles, yet their autism incidence is only 1/300th of ours in the U.S. What’s the difference, according to Shaw? Cuba prohibits over-the-counter acetaminophen, and only rarely allows acetaminophen prescribed for vaccinations, because acetaminophen is limited by the embargo. Deth noted that acetaminophen (like mercury) readily binds selenium-containing proteins that underlie the glutathione system [2]. By depleting glutathione, acetaminophen may effectively deplete glutamine because glutamine enters cells more easily than glutamate, thus often provides glutamate to synthesize glutathione [3].

      As Shaw noted, Bauer and Kriebel reported recommendations that acetaminophen (paracetamol in the UK) be given before and after circumcision: “These guidelines include the suggestion of a first dose . . . two hours prior to the procedure, and doses every 4–6 hours for 24 hours following the procedure. Thus newborn males often receive 5–7 doses . . . during the developmentally vulnerable initial days of life.” They also cited evidence that may explain the increased number of children born autistic: “In the early 1980’s about 42% of women used paracetamol during the first trimester of pregnancy. The rate climbed to over 65% in the early 1990’s, where it has essentially remained through 2004.”[4]

      For further evidence of glutathione depletion in autism, see: Chronic neurochemical asymmetry and dysconnection in autism. Implications of a personal trial of oral citrulline + taurine – published at <http:/www.autismstudies.net>

      references 1. Shaw W. Evidence that increased acetaminophen use in genetically vulnerable children appears to be a major cause of the epidemics of autism, attention deficit with hyperactivity, and asthma. J Restorative Medicine 2013;2:1–16. 2. Deth R (PhD). Personal communication 2010. 3. Hong RW, Rounds JD, Helton SW, Robinson MK, Wilmore DW. Glutamine preserves liver glutathione after lethal hepatic injury. Ann Surg 1992;215:114–119. 4. Bauer AZ, Kriebel D. Prenatal and perinatal analgesic exposure and autism: an ecological link. Environ Health 2013;12:41.


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    1. On 2014 Aug 01, Mark Yarchoan commented:

      Overall, this study raises interest in a link between metabolic derangements and Alzheimer’s disease (AD). However, one concern I have is that in evaluating a possible association between low circulating leptin and incident dementia, the authors adjusted for current BMI, but not amount or direction of recent weight change. It is well known (and reiterated in this article) that, “Although midlife obesity is associated with an increased risk of AD, late-life weight loss is known to precede the onset of clinical AD.” Therefore, it is to be expected that the AD and normal groups might have similar overall weight and BMI, but a different direction and rate of BMI change (AD group rapidly losing weight, normal aging group keeping or gaining weight). Leptin levels are correlated with current body fat mass, but appear to be even more significantly affected by direction of weight change. For example, 14% intentional weight loss in human subjects results in a 64.5% reduction in leptin levels (Sumithran et al. NEJM 2014/ PMID: 22029981). Therefore, I am concerned that the observed differences in leptin levels in this study may simply be a consequence of the significant and early weight loss seen in AD.


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    1. On 2015 Dec 01, S A Ostroumov commented:

      DOI:10.1134/S0012496609050159; In the presence of this aquatic, submerged, free-floating higher plant (rigid hornwort) in water system, it was occured that a decrease in concentrations of the four heavy metals (cadmium; copper; lead; zinc; Cu, Zn, Cd, and Pb) in the water medium accelerated. The aquatic macrophytes served as a factor to speed up the water purification (decontamination) process in the aquatic system. The method for measuring the heavy metals was stripping voltammetry. This paper is in the database of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (U.S.EPA), titled: Health & Environmental Research Online (HERO): http://hero.epa.gov/index.cfm?action=reference.details&reference_id=362778; FULL TEXT ONLINE FREE: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/40481671; KEYWORDS: the additional keywords for this paper in the database HERO: phytoremediation; polluted water; water pollution; water quality; Ceratophyllum demersum; Ceratophyllum; Ceratophyllaceae; Nymphaeales; dicotyledons; angiosperms; Spermatophyta; plants; eukaryotes; water composition and quality; Aquatic Biology and Ecology (MM300); Water Resources (PP200); Pollution and Degradation (PP600); Industrial Wastes and Effluents. The additional keywords: decontamination, aquatic, submerged, free-floating, higher plant, phytotechnology, ecotechnology, macrophytes, environmental toxicology, environmental chemistry, hornwort, rigid hornwort, coontail, coon's tail, stripping voltammetry; **


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    1. On 2014 Nov 19, Kaccie Li commented:

      The authors of this study generalized the subjects from the United States to be white/Caucasian which is a serious oversight. A cursory look at US demographics would reveal that just over 75 percent of the population is white which is probably already questionable to generalize the entire group as white, but a closer look reveals even more concerning factors. Consider the populations in the studies classified under "white" in Table 2 of this article where the first two entries were studies done by Wang and colleagues (ref 13) and Porter and colleagues (ref 14). The first study was done at Baylor College of Medicine where a meager 43 percent of the student population is white. Suppose subject recruitment was done in the city Houston in general, the conclusions of Lim's study can be further put under scrutiny since only about 25 percent of Houston's population is white (non-hispanic). Similar things could be stated about individuals recruited in Porter's study (ref 14) at the University of Rochester where only about 76 percent of the student body is white. Lim and Fam does not mention the possibility of the presence of significant African and Asian Americans being an unknown factor that could have affected their results and conclusions.


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    1. On 2014 Oct 15, Amanda Capes-Davis commented:

      More recent work has shown that hTERT-EEC is misidentified and is actually MCF-7. So hTERT-EEC cells are from breast carcinoma, not immortalized endothelium.

      It's important to test cell lines to confirm they correspond to the expected donor and are not cross-contaminated, using a consensus technique such as STR profiling. Journals are increasingly requiring testing as a prerequisite before publication and this will help to address the widespread use of misidentified cell lines in the scientific literature.

      It's also a good idea to check before using a cell line to see if others have documented a problem previously. ICLAC maintains a list of known misidentified cell lines at http://iclac.org/databases/cross-contaminations/.


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    1. On 2017 Aug 20, Daniel Weiss commented:

      This paper shows the insensitivity of two tiered testing for Lyme disease. Patients were “categorized as having Lyme disease, and met the CDC surveillance criteria for diagnosis”, i.e. positive serology or positive culture. Nonetheless, only “two-thirds of patients with acute neuroborreliosis or carditis … were seropositive by two-tier testing”. Therefore, one third were negative.

      These authors also state that “IgM testing in Lyme disease has been problematic” and the CDC requirement that “IgM criteria should only be used to support the diagnosis of early LD in persons with illness of <1 month duration” “reduces the sensitivity of serologic testing” in certain patient groups.

      This is one of many papers that argue against the reliance on serologic tests to rule out Lyme disease.


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    1. On 2017 May 31, David Nunan commented:

      Readers may not be aware of the notice of concern raised with this paper and another paper (Paterna S, 2008) by the same group published in Clinical Science in 2008, both of which were included in a 2012 systematic review published in BMJ Open Heart which was subsequently retracted. Whilst there is a link above to the notice of concern, here I've provided the contents of that notice. This paper has not been retracted.

      Concern has been raised regarding a paper published in the Journal of Cardiac Failure: “Long-Term Effects of Dietary Sodium Intake on Cytokines and Neurohumoral Activation in Patients With Recently Compensated Heart Failure,” by Parrinello et al, J Card Fail 2009;15:864–73. The paper contains a dataset identical to that published by the same authors in Clinical Science 2008;114:221–30. The corresponding author, Dr di Pasquale of Palermo, Italy, has indicated that an error was made during a “cut and paste” process, and a table from the 2008 Clinical Science paper was mistakenly reproduced in the 2009 Journal of Cardiac Failure paper. Dr di Pasquale also coauthored an online manuscript in Heart, August 21, 2012, using a meta-analysis of 6 earlier papers, and that online report also includes the duplicated data. When questioned about the data, Dr di Pasquale reported that by unintentional error he had inserted the table from the earlier 2008 paper (Clinical Science) into the 2009 paper (Journal of Cardiac Failure). The Dean of the Medical School at the University of Palermo was notified and asked to investigate the matter. It was reported that Dr di Pasquale lost the raw data owing to a “computer crash” without having made backup files. The data are therefore not verifiable. Based on the information at hand, we have been unable to independently determine with certainty the cause of duplication of the dataset. Given the fact that there are duplicate data published, and there is no way to validate or verify the veracity of the data, readers should be cautioned in the application of the findings reported in these manuscripts to their clinical practice.

      Gary S. Francis, MD Professor of Medicine, University of Minnesota Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Cardiac Failure http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cardfail.2013.05.015


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    1. On 2013 Oct 31, John Cannell commented:

      I congratulate the authors on a fine study. I wonder if they know that a recent meta-analysis found the the risk of preeclampsia is inversely related to maternal 25(OH)D levels?

      Tabesh M, 2013

      If not, it shows how little communication is occurring between autism spectrum disorder (ASD) scientists and the broader scientific realm. Each ASD scientist seems to be immersed in his or her own research interest but seemingly oblivious to the larger body of science research.

      Thus the vitamin D theory of ASD (vitamin D deficiency being the environmental risk factor for this highly heritable disorder) is consistent with the authors work. Three recent studies, using community controls, have found 25(OH)D levels are significantly lower in children with ASD. Two of the studies below (Mostafa et al and Gong et al) also found ASD severity, as rated on standard ASD rating scales, is inversely correlated with 25(OH)D levels. Mostafa et al found an R value of -.86 for the association of serum 25(OH)D with ASD severity.

      Gong ZL, Luo CM, Wang L, Shen L, Wei F, Tong RJ, Liu Y. Serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels in Chinese children with autism spectrum disorders. Neuroreport. 2013 Oct 1. Gong ZL, 2014

      Meguid NA, Hashish AF, Anwar M, Sidhom G. Reduced serum levels of 25-hydroxy and 1,25-dihydroxy vitamin D in Egyptian children with autism. J Altern Complement Med. 2010 Jun;16(6):641-5. Meguid NA, 2010

      Mostafa GA, Al-Ayadhi LY.Reduced serum concentrations of 25-hydroxy vitamin D in children with autism: relation to autoimmunity. J Neuroinflammation. 2012 Aug 17;9:201. Mostafa GA, 2012

      There is a plethora of basic science explaining why low gestational or early childhood 25(OH)D levels would adversely effect brain development.

      DeLuca GC, Kimball SM, Kolasinski J, Ramagopalan SV, Ebers GC. Review: the role of vitamin D in nervous system health and disease. Neuropathol Appl Neurobiol. 2013 Aug;39(5):458-84. doi: 10.1111/nan.12020. DeLuca GC, 2013

      Eyles DW, Feron F, Cui X, Kesby JP, Harms LH, Ko P, McGrath JJ, Burne TH. Developmental vitamin D deficiency causes abnormal brain development. Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2009 Dec;34 Suppl 1:S247-57. doi: 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2009.04.015. Epub . Review. Eyles DW, 2009

      Furthermore, the vitamin D theory of autism explains most of the epidemiological facts of ASD.

      Cannell JJ. On the aetiology of autism. Acta Paediatr. 2010 Aug;99(8):1128-30. Cannell JJ, 2010

      Cannell JJ. Autism and vitamin D. Med Hypotheses. 2008;70(4):750-9. Cannell JJ, 2008

      70% of American toddlers do not take the American Pediatric Association's recommended vitamin D supplement of 400 IU/day. As milk consumption has fallen, so have toddler’s vitamin D levels.

      Cannell JJ. Autism, will vitamin D treat core symptoms? Medical Hypotheses. 2013 Aug;81(2):195-8. Cannell JJ, 2013

      Some autism researchers seem cognizant of the entire body of autism research. For example, a group of well-known European autism researchers, including Professor Christopher Gillberg of the Gillberg Neuropsychiatric Institute, have recently called for the need for “urgent research” into the vitamin D deficiency theory of ASD.

      Kočovská E, Fernell E, Billstedt E, Minnis H, Gillberg C. Vitamin D and autism: clinical review. Res Dev Disabil. 2012 Sep-Oct;33(5):1541-50. doi: 10.1016/j.ridd.2012.02.015. Epub 2012 Apr 21.Kočovská E, 2012

      However, these scientists appear to be in the minority. Until all autism researchers become cognizant of the wider body of scientific research, we will continue to wonder how to prevent - and perhaps even treat - this modern day plague.

      John J Cannell, MD

      Vitamin D Council

      http://www.vitamindcouncil.org


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    1. On 2014 Jul 04, Ferenc Zsila commented:

      In page 583, the authors claim that "We also examined anthocyanidin–DNA interactions spectrophotometrically at pH 7.5 but were unable to demonstrate significant or consistent shifts in l max or maximum absorbance that would indicate the interaction between the two at this pH as has been observed for other flavonoids (Webb and Ebeler 2004)."

      However, all details of the spectrophotometric measurements are missing from the experimental section. Name and concentration of the tested anthocyanidin(s), concentration of the DNA, temperature, solvent, optical pathlength, wavelength range, and the type of the instrument used all remain unknown. Additionally, the absorption spectra are not shown either.


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    1. On 2016 Oct 03, Morten Oksvold commented:

      Please note that after an investigation at the University of Cologne, six articles where T. Wenz figures as first or senior author were found to contain questionable data due to scientific misconduct. This article is one of these six articles.

      The conclusion from the report was ready June 28, 2016, please see the link (in German):

      http://www.portal.uni-koeln.de/9015.html?&tx_news_pi1[news]=4335&tx_news_pi1[controller]=News&tx_news_pi1[action]=detail&cHash=1deb8399d7f796d65ca9f6ae4764a1ce


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    1. On 2016 Jan 12, Peter Gøtzsche commented:

      The odds ratio for death was 1.95 (95% confidence interval 1.21 to 3.14), when psychotic patients received 3 or more antipsychotics simultaneously instead of one, thus doubling the mortality. However, the authors adjusted for somatic comedication and the adjusted odds ratio was 1.16 (0.68 to 2.00). This is a fatal error. The death rate soared, the more drugs for somatic illnesses, the patients received (27 times if they received at least 10), and the use of, for example, cardiovascular drugs were 37% and 16% among those who died and those who survived (controls), respectively. The use of diabetes drugs was 12% and 6%, respectively. Since increased doses and the use of several antipsychotics simultaneously increase the incidence of somatic illnesses, it is blatantly wrong to adjust for the use of somatic comedication, as this is part of the causal chain from psychosis to death. In this manner, the adjustment removes a relation between polypharmacy and death that actually exists.

      Better studies have shown that polypharmacy with antipsychotics increases deaths, as expected. Some of these studies are mentioned in the current study’s Discussion section.

      Peter C Gøtzsche, Professor and Director, Nordic Cochrane Centre


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    1. On 2016 Aug 23, Ben Goldacre commented:

      This trial has the wrong trial registry ID associated with it on PubMed: both in the XML on PubMed, and in the originating journal article. The ID given is NCT002289835. We believe the correct ID, which we have found by hand searching, is NCT00289835.

      This comment is being posted as part of the OpenTrials.net project<sup>[1]</sup> , an open database threading together all publicly accessible documents and data on each trial, globally. In the course of creating the database, and matching documents and data sources about trials from different locations, we have identified various anomalies in datasets such as PubMed, and in published papers. Alongside documenting the prevalence of problems, we are also attempting to correct these errors and anomalies wherever possible, by feeding back to the originators. We have corrected this data in the OpenTrials.net database; we hope that this trial’s text and metadata can also be corrected at source, in PubMed and in the accompanying paper.

      Many thanks,

      Jessica Fleminger, Ben Goldacre*

      [1] Goldacre, B., Gray, J., 2016. OpenTrials: towards a collaborative open database of all available information on all clinical trials. Trials 17. doi:10.1186/s13063-016-1290-8 PMID: 27056367

      * Dr Ben Goldacre BA MA MSc MBBS MRCPsych<br> Senior Clinical Research Fellow<br> ben.goldacre@phc.ox.ac.uk<br> www.ebmDataLab.net<br> Centre for Evidence Based Medicine<br> Department of Primary Care Health Sciences<br> University of Oxford<br> Radcliffe Observatory Quarter<br> Woodstock Road<br> Oxford OX2 6GG


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    1. On 2014 Mar 05, Gwinyai Masukume commented:

      In the introduction of this article, the authors state: “We report the largest case series of advanced abdominal pregnancies from sub-Saharan Africa from 1976 to 2006.” This case series has 20 patients.

      In 1989, in the article below originating from Africa, South of the Sahara, 23 cases were described. This would thus be the ‘largest case series of advanced abdominal pregnancy from sub-Saharan Africa between 1976 and 2006’.

      White RG. Advanced abdominal pregnancy--a review of 23 cases. Ir J Med Sci. 1989; 158(4):77-8. White RG, 1989


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    1. On 2014 Feb 27, George W Hinkal commented:

      The National Cancer Institute has been investing in the development of an online webportal of curated cancer nanotechnology data called caNanoLab. The numerical data, nanomaterial characterizations and composition information for the ten nanoparticles related to this publication have been added to the database and can be found at:

      https://cananolab.nci.nih.gov/caNanoLab/characterization.do?dispatch=summaryView&sampleId=33161216&page=0&tab=ALL

      https://cananolab.nci.nih.gov/caNanoLab/characterization.do?dispatch=summaryView&sampleId=33161218&page=0&tab=ALL

      https://cananolab.nci.nih.gov/caNanoLab/characterization.do?dispatch=summaryView&sampleId=33161217&page=0&tab=ALL

      https://cananolab.nci.nih.gov/caNanoLab/characterization.do?dispatch=summaryView&sampleId=33161226&page=0&tab=ALL

      https://cananolab.nci.nih.gov/caNanoLab/characterization.do?dispatch=summaryView&sampleId=33161221&page=0&tab=ALL

      https://cananolab.nci.nih.gov/caNanoLab/characterization.do?dispatch=summaryView&sampleId=33161222&page=0&tab=ALL

      https://cananolab.nci.nih.gov/caNanoLab/characterization.do?dispatch=summaryView&sampleId=33685522&page=0&tab=ALL

      https://cananolab.nci.nih.gov/caNanoLab/characterization.do?dispatch=summaryView&sampleId=33161224&page=0&tab=ALL

      https://cananolab.nci.nih.gov/caNanoLab/characterization.do?dispatch=summaryView&sampleId=33161225&page=0&tab=ALL

      https://cananolab.nci.nih.gov/caNanoLab/characterization.do?dispatch=summaryView&sampleId=34766848&page=0&tab=ALL

      The left navigation links on these pages provide information about each sample (under Navigation Tree).

      For general information on how to use caNanoLab, please visit https://cananolab.nci.nih.gov/caNanoLab/home.jsp


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    1. On 2014 Jan 07, Brett Snodgrass commented:

      Dear Author,

      Thank you for the excellent article. Although the fistula closed without a specific ligation procedure, the three procedures probably altered the hemodynamics of the right ventricle and permitted the vessel of Wearn to become less prominent and/or close. The closure may be physiologic or anatomic, and I do not think we have sufficient information to make a definitive determination. The closure would probably be considered anatomic if the vessel lumen became fibrosed.

      Please consider viewing the following post related to this article.

      https://twitter.com/BrettSnodgrass1/status/415904348074287105

      Comments and feedback are welcome.

      Thank you kindly.


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    1. On 2016 Aug 30, Ben Goldacre commented:

      This trial has the wrong trial registry ID associated with it on PubMed. The ID given is NCT0019256. The correct ID is NCT00192556. This has been corrected in a subsequent correction published in the originating journal, but not in the PubMed metadata.

      This comment is being posted as part of the OpenTrials.net project<sup>[1]</sup> , an open database threading together all publicly accessible documents and data on each trial, globally. In the course of creating the database, and matching documents and data sources about trials from different locations, we have identified various anomalies in datasets such as PubMed, and in published papers. Alongside documenting the prevalence of problems, we are also attempting to correct these errors and anomalies wherever possible, by feeding back to the originators. We have corrected this data in the OpenTrials.net database and this ID has already been corrected in the originating journal; we hope that this trial’s text and metadata can also be corrected in PubMed.

      Many thanks,

      Jessica Fleminger, Ben Goldacre*

      [1] Goldacre, B., Gray, J., 2016. OpenTrials: towards a collaborative open database of all available information on all clinical trials. Trials 17. doi:10.1186/s13063-016-1290-8 PMID: 27056367

      * Dr Ben Goldacre BA MA MSc MBBS MRCPsych<br> Senior Clinical Research Fellow<br> ben.goldacre@phc.ox.ac.uk<br> www.ebmDataLab.net<br> Centre for Evidence Based Medicine<br> Department of Primary Care Health Sciences<br> University of Oxford<br> Radcliffe Observatory Quarter<br> Woodstock Road<br> Oxford OX2 6GG


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    1. On 2016 Nov 01, Michael Axtell commented:

      The URL given in this paper for some large supplemental files, http://www.bio.psu.edu/people/faculty/Axtell/AxtellLab/Data.html , is no longer active.

      Instead, these data may now be found at https://psu.app.box.com/v/axtelldata , in the directory called 'AddoQuayeetal2009_RNA'

      Thanks, Mike Axtell


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    1. On 2015 Feb 26, Frank Twisk commented:

      The article below is a formal response to the article above

      BMC Med. 2010 Jun 15;8:35. doi: 10.1186/1741-7015-8-35. Chronic fatigue syndrome: Harvey and Wessely's (bio)psychosocial model versus a bio(psychosocial) model based on inflammatory and oxidative and nitrosative stress pathways. Maes M, Twisk FNM.

      Abstract

      BACKGROUND:

      In a recently published paper, Harvey and Wessely put forward a 'biopsychosocial' explanatory model for myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), which is proposed to be applicable to (chronic) fatigue even when apparent medical causes are present.

      METHODS:

      Here, we review the model proposed by Harvey and Wessely, which is the rationale for behaviourally oriented interventions, such as cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) and graded exercise therapy (GET), and compare this model with a biological model, in which inflammatory, immune, oxidative and nitrosative (IO&NS) pathways are key elements.

      DISCUSSION:

      Although human and animal studies have established that the pathophysiology of ME/CFS includes IO&NS pathways, these abnormalities are not included in the model proposed by Harvey and Wessely. Activation of IO&NS pathways is known to induce fatigue and somatic (F&S) symptoms and can be induced or maintained by viral and bacterial infections, physical and psychosocial stressors, or organic disorders such as (auto)immune disorders. Studies have shown that ME/CFS and major depression are both clinical manifestations of shared IO&NS pathways, and that both disorders can be discriminated by specific symptoms and unshared or differentiating pathways. Interventions with CBT/GET are potentially harmful for many patients with ME/CFS, since the underlying pathophysiological abnormalities may be intensified by physical stressors.

      CONCLUSIONS:

      In contrast to Harvey and Wessely's (bio)psychosocial model for ME/CFS a bio(psychosocial) model based upon IO&NS abnormalities is likely more appropriate to this complex disorder. In clinical practice, we suggest physicians should also explore the IO&NS pathophysiology by applying laboratory tests that examine the pathways involved.

      PMID: 20550693

      http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2901228/pdf/1741-7015-8-35.pdf


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    1. On 2014 Oct 28, David Vaux commented:

      In Figure 5A of this paper, the upper part of the panel showing the SKBR3 cells with the FoxM1 plasmid (FC) looks very similar to the panel of MCF-7 cells in Figure 5C of the paper in the Journal of Cellular Biochemistry 108:916-925 published in 2009.

      In Fig. 6C, the bottom of the panel showing control (NS) SUM149 cells on the left, looks very similar to the upper part of the panel of UC/FS SUM149 cells on the right.

      As some of these panels therefore do not appear to be correctly labelled, the conclusions might not be correct.


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    1. On 2014 Mar 25, Valter Silva commented:

      Focusing on abdominal obesity

      Although the paper of Alberti KG, 2009<sup>1</sup> is very cited (more than 2000 times) and is very helpful for managing metabolic syndrome, there are some gaps in the diagnosis of abdominal obesity. We discussed this gaps in our review,<sup>2</sup> and also, we offered solutions such as "What is the best available evidence for measuring waist circumference?"

      Valter Silva, Research assistant, Universidade Federal de São Paulo, SP, Brazil

      Competing interests: None declared.

      Reference:

      1. Alberti KG, Eckel RH, Grundy SM, et al. Harmonizing the metabolic syndrome: a joint interim statement of the International Diabetes Federation Task Force on Epidemiology and Prevention; National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute; American Heart Association; World Heart Federation; International Atherosclerosis Society; and International Association for the Study of Obesity. Circulation 2009;120(16):1640-5.

      2. Silva V, Stanton KR, Grande AJ. Harmonizing the diagnosis of metabolic syndrome--focusing on abdominal obesity. Metab Syndr Relat Disord. 2013;11(2):102-8.


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    1. On 2014 Jan 06, Tom Kindlon commented:

      Why are we only given information on 3 out of the 8 SF-36 subscales?

      Reading this paper, one could be forgiven for thinking that the SF-36 questionnaire only has 3 subscales: Physical Functioning, Mental Health and Social Functioning as that is all we are given information on. In fact, of course, the SF-36 questionnaire has 8 subscales: Physical function, Role physical, Bodily pain, General health, Vitality, Social function, Role emotional and Mental health[1]. The authors use the empiric definition for CFS[2] which requires at a minimum that the "role physical" and "role emotional" subscales also be measured. We also know that all 8 subscales were measured in this cohort[3]. So why was the information not given?

      If one was not giving the authors the benefit of the doubt, one could speculate that it was because Table 4 would not look as good, as the Chi-squared calculations would not reach statistical significance for the missing data. But that would be speculation - there could be other reasons for the missing information.

      Perhaps the authors could post the relevant data now.

      I am not simply being mischievous - I would be interested in particular to see what are the scores for Classes 1 and 2 which include nearly all of the CFS patients (88/92, 95.7%).

      References:

      [1] Ware JE, Sherbourne CD: The MOS 36-item short form health survey (SF-36): conceptual framework and item selection. Med Care 1992, 30:473-483.

      [2] Reeves WC, Wagner D, Nisenbaum R, Jones JF, Gurbaxani B, Solomon L, Papanicolaou DA, Unger ER, Vernon SD, Heim C: Chronic fatigue syndrome--a clinically empirical approach to its definition and study. BMC Medicine 2005, 3:19.

      [3] An evaluation of exclusionary medical/psychiatric conditions in the definition of chronic fatigue syndrome. Jones JF, Lin JM, Maloney EM, Boneva RS, Nater UM, Unger ER, Reeves WC. BMC Med. 2009 Oct 12;7(1):57. - see Tables 5 and 6.


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    2. On 2014 Jan 06, Tom Kindlon commented:

      There has been criticism of how CFS is defined in this study

      I thought it would be useful to point out that there is controversy [1,2] with regard to the criteria [3] used in this study to define Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS).

      For example, the criteria for CFS used in this study do not even require a patient to have fatigue. The authors say: “We used the Multidimensional Fatigue Inventory (MFI-20) [4] to measure characteristics of fatigue” but they do not give the thresholds. Given the MFI-20 has five subscales: (General fatigue, Physical fatigue, Mental fatigue, Activity reduction and Motivation reduction), one would probably suspect that a patient would have to score poorly on one of the headings which have fatigue in their title. But the actual criteria are: a patient needs to score >=13 on MFI general fatigue or >=10 on reduced activity. Note, one could score >=10 on the MFI reduced activity questions without necessarily being fatigued (one could be depressed or even lazy) (only current major depressive disorder with melancholic features (MDDm) is an exclusion for this definition of CFS).

      This is despite the fact that in the current paper, the authors say: “Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is a common, debilitating illness whose hallmark symptoms involve fatigue and fatigability”. Many other questions have been raised about the criteria for CFS that were used in this study. For example, the authors only considered current MDDm to be exclusionary for CFS while the International CFS Study group recommended that conditions (including MDDm) were considered exclusions unless they had been “resolved for more than 5 years before the onset of the current chronically fatiguing illness”[5].

      Prevalence figures show that the criteria, that were used for this cohort, are selecting a broader group than previous criteria for CFS. Based on the figures derived from this cohort, the prevalence of CFS was estimated at 2.54% [6]. Other studies using similar methodology (but which did not operationalize the criteria [7] for the CFS in the same way as this study) estimated the prevalence of CFS to be 0.235% (95% confidence interval, 0.142%-0.327%) and 0.422% (95% confidence interval, 0.29%-0.56%) [8,9].

      References:

      [1]. Jason LA, & Richman JA. How science can stigmatize: The case of chronic fatigue syndrome. Journal of CFS 2007;14:85-103.

      [2]. Jason LA, Najar N, Porter N, Reh C. Evaluating the Centers for Disease Control's empirical chronic fatigue syndrome case definition. Journal of Disability Policy Studies 2009;20;93.

      [3]. Reeves WC, Wagner D, Nisenbaum R, Jones JF, Gurbaxani B, Solomon L, Papanicolaou DA, Unger ER, Vernon SD, Heim C: Chronic fatigue syndrome--a clinically empirical approach to its definition and study. BMC Medicine 2005, 3:19.

      [4]. Smets EM, Garssen B, Bonke B, De Haes JC. The multidimensional fatigue inventory (MFI) psychometric qualities of an instrument to assess fatigue. J Psychosom Res 1995; 39: 315–25.

      [5]. Reeves WC, Lloyd A, Vernon SD, Klimas N, Jason LA, Bleijenberg G, Evengard B, White PD, Nisenbaum R, Unger ER; International Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Study Group. Identification of ambiguities in the 1994 chronic fatigue syndrome research case definition and recommendations for resolution. BMC Health Serv Res. 2003 Dec 31;3(1):25.

      [6]. Reeves WC, Jones JF, Maloney E, Heim C, Hoaglin DC, Boneva RS, Morrissey M, Devlin R. Prevalence of chronic fatigue syndrome in metropolitan, urban, and rural Georgia. Popul Health Metr. 2007 Jun 8;5:5.

      [7]. Fukuda K, Straus SE, Hickie I, Sharpe MC, Dobbins JG, Komaroff A. The chronic fatigue syndrome; a comprehensive approach to its definition and study. Ann Int Med 1994, 121:953-959.

      [8]. Reyes M, Nisenbaum R, Hoaglin DC, Unger ER, Emmons C, Randall B, Stewart JA, Abbey S, Jones JF, Gantz N, Minden S, Reeves WC: Prevalence and incidence of chronic fatigue syndrome in Wichita, Kansas. Arch Int Med 2003, 163:1530-1536.

      [9]. Jason LA, Richman JA, Rademaker AW, Jordan KM, Plioplys AV, Taylor RR, McCready W, Huang CF, Plioplys S. A community-based study of chronic fatigue syndrome. Arch Intern Med. 1999 Oct 11;159(18):2129-37.


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    3. On 2014 Jan 06, Tom Kindlon commented:

      A more detailed comparison would need to be made before one could say this replicates the previous study

      Part of the aim of this study [1] appears to be to compare the classes that were drawn up with a previous cohort[2-4]. However it does not, to my mind, deal with this in a particularly rigorous fashion. The main quantitative comparisons are the percentages that fall in each class (Tables 6 and 7). However, the percentages will be influenced by the quantity and type of non-CFS controls used which are not the same in each cohort [to explain why this is important using an extreme example: if there were 1000 non-CFS cases for everyone one CFS case in one cohort, the percentages in each class would be different than if there was a 1:1 ratio of CFS to non-CFS cases in the other cohort].

      The first study involved the following[5]: "This population-based case control study enrolled 227 adults identified from the population of Wichita with: (1) CFS (n = 58); (2) non-fatigued controls matched to CFS on sex, race, age and body mass index (n = 55); (3) persons with medically unexplained fatigue not CFS, which we term ISF (n = 59); (4) CFS accompanied by melancholic depression (n = 27); and (5) ISF plus melancholic depression (n = 28)." This was based on the classification in 1997-2000. These were then assessed during 2003. As one can see in Table 2, in 2003, 6 out of the original 58 CFS patients satisfied the CFS definition[6] as originally operationalized, along with 4 out of the controls. 6 more who had previously been excluded because of previous diagnosis of Major Depressive Disorder with melancholic features (MDDm) were also said to satisfy the original CFS diagnosis. The method for operationalizing the CFS definition[6] was then changed so there was then 43 individuals with CFS (see Table 5). Although the same method[5] of operationalizing the CFS definition[6] is used when comparing the Wichita and Georgia cohorts, it is a very different way to select patients and controls than the current study[1]. So it is questionable how interesting it is to compare the percentages in each class.

      A comparison of the percentages of CFS in each class might have been interesting but that was not done.

      Also, apart from the percentages, no tables with quantitative information are presented in the current paper to help the reader compare the class groups to see how valid the comparisons are. This is made more difficult because the original study gave much more detailed data on the six class solution rather than the five class solution [2]: "As the five- and six-class solutions produced practically identical classes, with the exception of the fifth group in the five-class solution being divided into the fifth and sixth classes in the six-class solution, only the six-class solution is presented in Table 2."

      So in that paper, one has classes which have a median BMI of 32, 30 and 30 which are described in the current paper[1] as obese classes while class 5 would be a combination of classes 5 and 6 which have a median BMI of 26 and 27 are classed as non-obese. So numerical comparisons would have been of more use rather than looking at verbal descriptions - describing two groups which have a median BMI of 30 as obese (so approx 50% would have a BMI under 30, one threshold for obesity) and another group which has a median BMI of around 26.5 as non-obese, seems a bit unsatisfactory. There is a 5 class LCA solution in Figure 1 in one of the Wichita papers which gives some verbal descriptions[4]. As one can see, "obese" is only used to describe two of the five LCA groups: - Obese, hypnoea (27.93%) - Obese, hypnoea and stressed (15.32%) - Interoception (16.22%) - Interoception, depression (19.82%) - Well (20.72%)

      However, this does not seem to be the same five class solution for the Wichita cohort as the one described in this paper as the percentages don't match up.

      References:

      [1]. Aslakson E, Vollmer-Conna U, Reeves WC, White PD. Replication of an empirical approach to delineate the heterogeneity of chronic unexplained fatigue. Popul Health Metr. 2009 Oct 5;7:17.

      [2]. Vollmer-Conna U, Aslakson E, White PD: An empirical delineation of the heterogeneity of chronic unexplained fatigue in women. Pharmacogenomics 2006, 7(3):355-364.

      [3]. Aslakson E, Vollmer-Conna U, White PD. The validity of an empirical delineation of heterogeneity in chronic unexplained fatigue. Pharmacogenomics. 2006 Apr;7(3):365-73.

      [4]. Carmel L, Efroni S, White PD, Aslakson E, Vollmer-Conna U, Rajeevan MS. Gene expression profile of empirically delineated classes of unexplained chronic fatigue. Pharmacogenomics. 2006 Apr;7(3):375-86.

      [5]. Reeves WC, Wagner D, Nisenbaum R, Jones JF, Gurbaxani B, Solomon L, Papanicolaou DA, Unger ER, Vernon SD, Heim C. Chronic fatigue syndrome--a clinically empirical approach to its definition and study. BMC Med. 2005 Dec 15;3:19.

      [6]. Fukuda K, Straus SE, Hickie I, Sharpe MC, Dobbins JG, Komaroff A: The chronic fatigue syndrome; a comprehensive approach to its definition and study. Ann Int Med 1994, 121:953-959.


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    1. On 2016 Feb 17, Egon Willighagen commented:

      Dear Poh et al., could you please inform me about the inhibition effects of the stereochemistry of the allene functionality in NITD448? Did you use a specific stereoisomer, or are they biologically equivalent? Did you measure activity for them separately too? Did docking show differences in binding affinity?


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    1. On 2013 Dec 29, ROBERT HURST commented:

      It is truly amazing that this paper was ever published. First, there is a long history of attempting to correlate IC with infectious agents. Not only is this literature not acknowledged, but the final assessment that the findings represented false positives is not discussed. Amazingly, there are no controls collected from patients without IC but under the same conditions. Thus we do not know whether the alleged "nanobacteria," which may or may not even be living organisms, are even associated with IC, or whether random biopsies from all sorts of disorders might have yielded the same results.


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    1. On 2013 Jul 03, Joshua L Cherry commented:

      This review, and the work on which it is based (Webster AJ, 2003, Pagel M, 2006), claim that speciation events are accompanied by bursts of protein sequence evolution. This claim is based on correlations between the total root-to-tip branch length and the number of nodes along this path in phylogenetic trees.

      As the authors explain, in such analyses it is critical to account for what they call the node-density artifact. This effect can lead to an apparent correlation for the inferred branch lengths in the absence of a correlation for the true lengths. The authors claim to have accounted for this artifact, but there is reason to doubt this.

      The authors attempt to detect the artifact through the concavity of the relationship between number of nodes and path length, and eliminate trees that appear to be affected. There are, however, several reasons to doubt the reliability of their test. The form of the expected relationship is not known. In fact the effect does not depend on only the number of nodes, but also on their position; an additional node in the middle of a long branch will have a large effect on the total calculated length, whereas an additional node near one end of the branch will have a small effect. The authors fit a power law to the data. This family of functions has unrealistic features. The true relationship is expected to approach a horizontal asymptote, whereas the power law increases without bound. Also, the power law artificially forces the curve through the origin. Furthermore, with finite data the downward concavity might not be detected due to chance, even with a perfect model. Because the concavity will be weak under some circumstances, this is an important concern.

      I would suggest another type of test. Branch lengths can be recalculated with some species, and hence some nodes, omitted. The true branch lengths and speciation histories of course remain unchanged, but species originally separated from the root by many nodes are now just as vulnerable to branch shortening as species with fewer nodes. If the path shortens as a result, this is evidence of the node-density artifact. I suspect that many additional trees would be shown to suffer from the artifact by this type of test.


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    1. On 2014 Jan 11, Brett Snodgrass commented:

      Dear Authors,

      Thank you for the excellent article.

      The image appears to depict an enlarged sinusoid, a structure that was not morphometrically described by Thebesius.

      1. http://bit.ly/vasaThebesii

      It may be preferable to refer to the sinusoid as "myocardial," instead of attributing it to either Wearn or Thebesius as the meandering sinusoids connect to both the vessels of Wearn and the Thebesian veins. http://bit.ly/JTWearn

      Since this appears to be a dilated sinusoid (and possibly its common opening), the fistulae may be vessels of Wearn as they connected to a ventricular chamber to the posterior descending artery, which originated from the right coronary artery.

      1. http://bit.ly/JTWearn
      2. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22704295

      Cardiac radiologist Dr. Grollman discusses the vessels of Wearn (arterioluminal & arteriosinusoidal vessels) & the vessels of Thebesius in his insightful letter.

      1. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9502691

      My opinion is that accurate anatomic terminology is a basic principle underlying good medical science, and I ask others to consider whether the aforementioned definitions are appropriate.

      If the terms are not appropriate, please consider sharing why through a comment.

      If this comment is not helpful, please let me know how it might be improved.

      Thank you very much.


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    1. On 2014 Aug 27, Jorge H Ramírez commented:

      I recently mentioned the RE-LY study in a previous comment yesterday via PubMed Commons. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25138329#cm25138329_5938

      This will be also my last comment via PubMed commons related to dabigatran or the RE-LY study (the only exception are possible replies to comments related to these posts).

      Information about dabigatran & the RE-LY study

      1. Cohen Deborah. Concerns over data in key dabigatran trial BMJ 2014; 349:g4747

      2. Cohen Deborah. Dabigatran: how the drug company withheld important analyses BMJ 2014; 349:g4670

      3. Moore Thomas J, Cohen Michael R, Mattison Donald R. Dabigatran, bleeding, and the regulators BMJ 2014; 349:g4517

      4. Charlton Blake, Redberg Rita. The trouble with dabigatran BMJ 2014; 349:g4681

      5. Jackson Trevor. Dabigatran and statins: faith, hype, and transparency BMJ 2014; 349:g4793

      6. Ramirez, Jorge H (2014): Requested (Jul 29, 2014) & Retracted by the author (Aug 23, 2014): "Conelly S, et al. Dabigatran versus Warfarin in Patients with Atrial Fibrillation. N Engl J Med 2009; 361:1139-1151"] - Question Thread Open. figshare. http://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.1144305

      7. Bleeding with dabigatran, rivaroxaban, apixaban. Prescrire Int 2013; 22 (139): 155-159.

      8. Dabigatran for atrial fibrillation: why we can not rely on RE-LY http://www.ti.ubc.ca/sites/ti.ubc.ca/files/80.pdf

      9. The use, misuse and abuse of dabigatran https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2013/198/7/use-misuse-and-abuse-dabigatran

      10. Ramirez, Jorge H (2014): Dabigatran (Pradaxa): 81.4% of registered studies in ClinicalTrials.gov are unpublished. figshare. http://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.1116303

      Competing interests: Already declared in previous comment posted in PubMed commons (1st URL above)


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    1. On 2015 Oct 02, Simon Young commented:

      This is an interesting review but omits some important manuscripts. For example, in the section on the effect of tryptophan loading on mood in healthy volunteers there is no mention of several relevant studies Leathwood PD, 1982, Charney DS, 1982, Greenwood MH, 1974, SMITH B, 1962. The same is true for studies on the effect of tryptophan on sleep Griffiths WJ, 1972, Hartmann E, 1977, Adam K, 1979. The statement in the section 4.1 that “there is little consensus in terms of Trp’s efficacy in treating depression” is not universally accepted. A Cochrane Database Systematic Review concluded that the available evidence suggests that tryptophan is better than placebo at alleviating depression Shaw K, 2002, and tryptophan has been available as a prescription drug for the treatment of depression in a number of countries. The Cochrane Database Systematic Review includes a number of studies not included in the article.


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    1. On 2017 Jun 19, Daniele Mengato commented:

      Rituximab biosimilar vs rituximab originator in advanced follicular lymphoma

      by Daniele Mengato Scuola di Specializzazione in Farmacia Ospedaliera, Dipartimento di Scienze del Farmaco, University of Padua, Padova, Italy

      One interesting point of this article by Gao et al. (1) is that the authors have presented a meta-analysis based on the end-point of the overall response rate in which chemotherapy plus rituximab has been compared with chemotherapy alone in patients with advanced follicular lymphoma (AFL). Schulz et al. (2) have conducted a meta-analysis (published in 2007) based on a similar design. In particular, they used the same endpoint obtained from the same RCTs citated in the work by Gao et al. EMA has recently approved a biosimilar of rituximab (called CPT-10) indicated for patients with AFL (3). In documenting the equivalence between CPT-10 and the originator of rituximab, the analysis carried out by EMA has evaluated the randomized trial that directly compared these two agents in the above-mentioned patients. Clinical endpoint investigated in this trial was the same as the one used in the already mentioned meta-analysis: the overall response rate. It has been proposed (4) that an analysis focused on the equivalence between a biosimilar and an originator can be strengthened if a network meta-analysis is performed that includes not only the comparison between biosimilar and originator, but also the comparison between the originator and the old standard of care (i.e. chemotherapy alone). We welcome one such network meta-analysis. For this purpose, as regards the comparison between the originator plus chemotherapy and chemotherapy alone, the 6 trials (5-10) either reported by Gao et al. or by Schulz et al. are suitable for being included in this network meta-analysis.

      References

      1. Gao G, Liang X, Jiang J, Zhou X, et al. A systematic review and meta-analysis of immunochemotherapy with rituximab for B-cell non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Acta oncologica. 2010 Jan;49(1):3-12.
      2. Schulz H, Bohlius J, Skoetz N, et al. Chemotherapy plus Rituximab versus chemotherapy alone for B-cell non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. The Cochrane database of systematic reviews. 2007 Oct 17(4):Cd003805.
      3. EMA European Medicine Agency - Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP). Truxima : EPAR - Public assessment report. http://www.ema.europa.eu/docs/en_GB/document_library/EPAR_-_Public_assessment_report/human/004112/WC500222695.pdf 2016 May;EMA/CHMP/75695/2017
      4. Messori A, Trippoli S, Marinai C. Network meta-analysis as a tool for improving the effectiveness assessment of biosimilars based on both direct and indirect evidence: application to infliximab in rheumatoid arthritis. Eur J Clin Pharmacol. 2017 Apr;73(4):513-514. doi:10.1007/s00228-016-2177-z. Epub 2016 Dec 14.
      5. Forstpointer R, Dreyling M, Repp R, et al. The addition of rituximab to a combination of fludarabine, cyclophosphamide, mitoxantrone (FCM) significantly increases the response rate and prolongs survival as compared with FCM alone in patients with relapsed and refractory follicular and mantle cell lymphomas: results of a prospective randomized study of the German Low-Grade Lymphoma Study Group. Blood 2004;104(10):3064-3071.
      6. Herold M, Pasold R, Srock S, et al. Results of a Prospective Randomised Open Label Phase III Study Comparing Rituximab Plus Mitoxantrone, Chlorambucile, Prednisolone Chemotherapy (R-MCP) Versus MCP Alone in Untreated Advanced Indolent Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma (NHL) and MantleCell-Lymphoma (MCL). ASH Annual Meeting Abstracts. 2004; Vol. 104, issue 11:584.
      7. Hiddemann W, Kneba B, Dreyling M, et al. Frontline therapy with rituximab added to the combination of cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, and prednisone (CHOP) significantly improves the outcome for patients with advanced-stage follicular lymphoma compared with therapy with CHOP alone: results of a prospective randomized study of the German Low-Grade Lymphoma Study Group. Blood 2005;106(12):3725–3732.
      8. Marcus R, Imrie K, Belch A, et al. CVP chemotherapy plus rituximab compared with CVP as first-line treatment for advanced follicular lymphoma. Blood 2005;105(4):1417–1423.
      9. Rivas-Vera S, Baez E, Sobrevilla-Calvo P, et al. Is First Line Single Agent Rituximab the Best Treatment for Indolent Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma? Update of a Multicentric Study Comparing Rituximab vs CNOP vs Rituximab Plus CNOP. ASH Annual Meeting Abstracts. 2005; Vol. 106, issue 11:2431.
      10. van Oers MH, Klasa R, Marcus RE, Wolf M, Kimby E, et al. Rituximab maintenance improves clinical outcome of relapsed/resistant follicular non-Hodgkin lymphoma in patients both with and without rituximab during induction: results of a prospective randomized phase 3 intergroup trial.. Blood 2006;108 (10):3295–301.


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    1. On 2015 Oct 06, S Sundar commented:

      The conclusion by Nanda et al on hormonal therapy use for prostate cancer and increased mortality is not only based on a small subset (5%) of a retrospective study but the study population consisted of patients whose primary treatment was Brachytherapy(1). By contrast multiple prospective randomised trials, which have shown significant survival benefits for hormone therapy, utilised external radiation (RT) as the primary treatment modality(2)(3). Hence extreme caution is needed before extrapolating the evidence generated by Nanda et al to routine clinical practice.(1.

      Radiobiologically, Brachytherapy is different from external RT. Radiation Doses delivered by Brachytherapy are usually far higher than delivered by external RT. Unlike external RT which is given in daily fractions over many weeks, Seed Brachytherapy delivers continuous radiation and affects repair and repopulation of surrounding normal tissues including vascular structures. Furthermore, a significant proportion of Brachytherapy treated patients have distant vascular migration of radioactive seeds.(4) The long term effect of delivering unnecessary vascular radiation at distant places such as lungs remains to be elucidated.

      Independent randomised studies combining modest doses of external RT with adjuvant hormonal therapy have shown substantial overall survival benefit. Hence, unless prospective data confirms the results of data mining by Nanda et al, prostate patients with co-morbidity, who are having external RT as their primary therapy, should not be deprived hormone therapy.

      References:

      1. Nanda A, Chen M-H, Braccioforte MH, Moran BJ, D’Amico AV. Hormonal therapy use for prostate cancer and mortality in men with coronary artery disease-induced congestive heart failure or myocardial infarction. JAMA. 2009 Aug 26;302(8):866–73.

      2. Bolla M, Van Tienhoven G, Warde P, Dubois JB, Mirimanoff R-O, Storme G, et al. External irradiation with or without long-term androgen suppression for prostate cancer with high metastatic risk: 10-year results of an EORTC randomised study. Lancet Oncol. 2010 Nov;11(11):1066–73.

      3. Brundage M, Sydes MR, Parulekar WR, Warde P, Cowan R, Bezjak A, et al. Impact of Radiotherapy When Added to Androgen-Deprivation Therapy for Locally Advanced Prostate Cancer: Long-Term Quality-of-Life Outcomes From the NCIC CTG PR3/MRC PR07 Randomized Trial. J Clin Oncol Off J Am Soc Clin Oncol. 2015 Jul 1;33(19):2151–7.

      4. Eshleman JS, Davis BJ, Pisansky TM, Wilson TM, Haddock MG, King BF, et al. Radioactive seed migration to the chest after transperineal interstitial prostate brachytherapy: extraprostatic seed placement correlates with migration. Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys. 2004 Jun 1;59(2):419–25.


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    1. On 2014 Mar 12, Allison Stelling commented:

      While SERS gives an advantage in depth penetration, I would be more comfortable with not using any labels in medical diagnostics. Raman spectroscopy can be done without needing any nanoparticles. For a newer study that uses Raman and florescence to do non-invasive, non-destructive tumor border margin assessment on-line during surgeries, see Kong K, 2013.

      As to the depth penetration, spatially offset Raman studies are being done that address this question. Labels and dyes may always have a place at the diagnostic table- however, I think they should be a last resort after less expensive and invasive tests; for a review see: Matousek P, 2013.


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    2. On 2014 Feb 27, George W Hinkal commented:

      The National Cancer Institute has been investing in the development of an online webportal of curated cancer nanotechnology data called caNanoLab. The numerical data, nanomaterial characterizations and composition information for the ten nanoparticles related to this publication have been added to the database and can be found at:

      https://cananolab.nci.nih.gov/caNanoLab/characterization.do?dispatch=summaryView&sampleId=36601870&page=0&tab=ALL

      https://cananolab.nci.nih.gov/caNanoLab/characterization.do?dispatch=summaryView&sampleId=36601871&page=0&tab=ALL

      https://cananolab.nci.nih.gov/caNanoLab/characterization.do?dispatch=summaryView&sampleId=36601872&page=0&tab=ALL

      https://cananolab.nci.nih.gov/caNanoLab/characterization.do?dispatch=summaryView&sampleId=36601873&page=0&tab=ALL

      https://cananolab.nci.nih.gov/caNanoLab/characterization.do?dispatch=summaryView&sampleId=36601874&page=0&tab=ALL

      https://cananolab.nci.nih.gov/caNanoLab/characterization.do?dispatch=summaryView&sampleId=36601875&page=0&tab=ALL

      https://cananolab.nci.nih.gov/caNanoLab/characterization.do?dispatch=summaryView&sampleId=36601876&page=0&tab=ALL

      https://cananolab.nci.nih.gov/caNanoLab/characterization.do?dispatch=summaryView&sampleId=36601877&page=0&tab=ALL

      https://cananolab.nci.nih.gov/caNanoLab/characterization.do?dispatch=summaryView&sampleId=36601878&page=0&tab=ALL

      https://cananolab.nci.nih.gov/caNanoLab/characterization.do?dispatch=summaryView&sampleId=36601879&page=0&tab=ALL

      The left navigation links on these pages provide information about each sample (under Navigation Tree).

      For general information on how to use caNanoLab, please visit https://cananolab.nci.nih.gov/caNanoLab/home.jsp


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    1. On 2016 Dec 13, UFRJ Neurobiology and Reproducibility Journal Club commented:

      There are also issues in the statistical analysis, as a large number of behavioral measures are obtained, with relatively few significant results, which due to the amount of statistical comparisons (more than 20 in total) may well be just spurious effects. However, the authors never seem to discuss this possibility. Moreover, in the passive avoidance task the results mention Z scores and chi-square results, while the figure and methods mention that the analysis was performed with Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis tests, which should not yield either chi-square or Z scores. Finally, the conclusion of the authors that testosterone and DHT have different effects is not warranted, as even though each drug shows significant differences against placebo in different tests, in none of them a difference between both treatments was found. Moreover, the improvement in the water maze retention test in the testosterone group seems to have been inferred from intra-group comparisons between quadrants in these groups, but no comparison between groups was performed. The assumption of a difference between treatments is thus erroneous, as the statistical analysis does not compare the groups directly (for more information on this common statistical error, see Nieuwenhuis S, 2011).


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    1. On 2016 Feb 22, thomas samaras commented:

      Some publications that provide a different viewpoint. Additional arguments favoring smaller height or body size are presented in the previous discussion.

      He, et al.2014. Shorter men live longer: association of height with longevity and FOXO3 genotype in American men of Japanese ancestry. PloS ONE 9(5): e94385. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0094385

      Samaras 2014. Evidence from eight different types of studies showing that smaller body size is related to greater longevity JSRR, 3(16) 2050-2160, article no.JSRR.2014.16.003

      Salaris et al. 2012. Height and survival at older ages among men born in an inland village in Sardinia (Italy), 1866-2006. Biodemograph and Social Biology,58:1, 1-13. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19485565.2012.666118.

      Mueller & Mazur 2009. Tallness comes with higher mortality in two cohorts of US Army officers. Paper presented at the XXVI IUSSP International Population Conference 2009.


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    2. On 2016 Feb 22, thomas samaras commented:

      A report by the World Cancer Research Fund indicated that since the industrial revolution chronic diseases have increased along with our height, weight. The authors of the report also associated the Western diet with the increase in chronic diseases. Silventoinen also observed that the Western diet promotes both increased height and coronary heart disease. Trowell, Nazmi and Monteiro reported that pre-Western populations were free of common Western chronic diseases until they transition to the Western diet. Popkin also observed that the food system developed over that 100 years has been devastating to our health.

      My point is that increasing height and weight is connected to poorer health. Yes, our life expectancy has increased due to improved sanitation, health care, reduced injuries due 60-70 hours of hard physical work, child and adult labor laws, and immunization programs. However, the increase in longevity at older ages has been insignificant. For example, a 75-year old in 1900 had a remaining life expectancy of 8.5 years. In 2000, a 75-year old had a life expectancy of 10 years. A 1.5 year increase in life expectancy is small considering the huge advances in medical science and care as well as a much improved standard of living.

      The association of height with health is a valid within the developed world. However, it is not the cause of our increased life expectancy or reduced mortality from CHD. Most studies showing taller people have lower CHD compared to shorter people are not based on inherent benefits of increased height per se. This is clearly shown by the following evidence. In fact, recent research indicates that lower socio-economic status is an independent risk factor for CHD. And we know that more shorter people populate the lower economic classes than the upper classes.

      1. Pre-Western populations, with poor medical care, often are free of CHD and other chronic diseases (Trowell, Burkitt, Walker, Nazmi, Cordain, etc). In fact, many populations studied in the mid 20th Century were entirely free of CHD and stroke. These included Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Kalahari bushmen, and Congo pygmies. Others who had no or little CHD/CVD include Kitavans, Tarahumara Indians, Xingu Indians, Yanomamo Indians, rural black South Africans, and Vilcabambans. All these groups had males that averaged from below 5' to about 5'5".

      2. In the early 1900s, Americans and Europeans had very low deaths from CHD but were a few inches shorter than we are today with much higher levels of CHD in spite of major advancements in heart care and treatment.

      3. A US study of ethnic groups found that Asians had the lowest CHD mortality compared to other ethnic groups. The Whites and Blacks, had about twice the mortality rate of Asians. Latinos and Native Americans were in between these two groups in mortality. Asians are the shortest group and Latinos and Native Americans are shorter than Whites and Blacks. The source for mortality rates was Health US, 2001. It provided data from 1985 to 1999 and was based on millions of deaths.

      4. Okinawans are shorter than mainland Japanese and have a 40% lower mortality from CHD. Japanese living in Hawaii are taller than mainland Japanese and have higher CHD mortality. Japanese in California are the tallest and have the highest CHD mortality compared to the shorter groups.

      5. The Japanese average about 5'7" and in the recent past had the lowest death rate from CHD compared to European countries and the US. However, shorter Vietnamese women have lower risk of CHD compared to taller Japanese women.

      6. Davenport and Love found that taller WWI military recruits had more heart problems than shorter ones.

      7. In the 20th C, southern Europeans had about 40% lower deaths from heart disease compared to taller northern Europeans. Northern French were taller and also had higher CHD compared to southern French.

      8. Bavdakar reported that young and middle aged Indians are suffering from an epidemic of heart disease and type 2 diabetes. This epidemic has paralleled changes in diet and increased height.

      9. S.Korean males are now 5'8.5" compared to about 5'4" or 5'5" in the 1960s. Although they have avoided a large increase in obesity, they have seen a 2800% increase in CHD (Oken).

      10. Davey Smith has shown that there is a relationship among, socio-economic status (SES), height, all-cause mortality and CHD. And men who spent their entire lives in higher SES were the tallest and had the lowest mortality compared to those who spent their entire lives in a lower SES. Men who had mixed backgrounds were in-between in height and mortality. Osika also found that taller people in low income groups had an almost 40% higher risk of heart attacks.

      11. The idea that small size promotes more heart disease is not consistent with dog research. For, example, Bonnett found that Great Danes had 60 times the risk of heart failure as miniature Dachshunds. There was a general pattern of increasing heart failure with increasing breed size.

      The factors that promote increased height and weight need re-evaluation. Yes, reduced starvation and improved medical care and living conditions have helped on the one hand. But excessive food and the wrong foods have hurt us as well. The obesity epidemic is certainly a reflection of serious health practices clouded by our false belief that rapid growth, tallness and increased robustness are desirable trends.


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    1. On 2017 Jul 10, Robert Speth commented:

      Recently there has been a spate of advertisements for a new cognition enhancing “proven results, improving memory & performance” dietary supplement, Natrol Cognium®. The advertising says that it has been clinically proven to be effective in 9 clinical trials. One of the trials cited on the website of the manufacturer of Natrol Cognium® is from this 2009 article in J. Med Food.<br> Upon reviewing this paper, I find the results to be suspect and not supportive of the claims that the active ingredient in Natrol Cognium® significantly enhances cognitive performance. In the only comparison with the placebo control group shown in this manuscript, the Natrol Cognium® ingredient-treated group actually performed slightly worse than the placebo group in the CTT-2 test: 74.8 (30.6) versus 74.5 (20.1) seconds, respectively, after a 4-week treatment! It is well-established that placebo treated groups show improvements in double-blind studies. This is why it is necessary to show that the experimental treatment group performs significantly better than the placebo group at the endpoint of the study. In this study there was no significant difference in the reported endpoint performance between the Natrol Cognium® ingredient-treated group and the placebo control group.<br> An additional question of the validity of the statistical analyses in this paper is the claim of a statistically significant (p<0.05), 1.7% improvement in CTT-1 time after taking Natrol Cognium® for 4 weeks. Given the large error variances 41 and 36% of the mean values before and after Natrol Cognium® ingredient-treatment, respectively, (the variance of the mean of the individual before and after difference for a paired comparison analysis is not provided in the manuscript), it is difficult to believe that a 1.7% improvement would be statistically significant or clinically meaningful. Therefore, this report does not support the advertising claims that Natrol Cognium® is clinically shown to improve cognitive performance.


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    1. On 2013 Dec 06, Tom Kindlon commented:

      Differences in medication usage in the Wichita and Georgia cohorts could be due to the different methods of operationalizing the Fukuda criteria that were used

      Medication usage was not the same in the CFS populations found in the Wichita and Georgia populations.

      The authors summarise the similarities and differences in the following paragraph:

      “Our findings confirm those from a previous study of medication use in persons with CFS from Wichita, Kansas. Both studies found significantly higher usage of pain relievers, gastrointestinal drugs, antidepressants and benzodiazepines by persons with CFS compared to Well controls. Unlike the Wichita study, though, persons with CFS in Georgia were not significantly more likely than controls to use hormones and supplements but were significantly more likely than controls to use muscle relaxants and anti-allergy and cold/sinus medications. Overall, compared to persons with CFS from the Wichita study7, a smaller proportion of persons with CFS in Georgia used pain-relievers (65.5% in Georgia vs. 87.8% in Wichita), supplements/vitamins (44.3% vs. 62.2%), antidepressants (36.3% vs. 41.1%), antibiotics (7.1% vs. 16.7%), hormones (43.4% vs. 52.5%. among women only, 11.8% among all CFS), antihypertensive drugs (17.7% vs. 21.1%), muscle relaxants (8.9% vs. 12.2%), anti-asthma medications (7.1% vs. 12.2%), glucose-lowering drugs (0.9% vs. 4.4%.). Use of other prescription drug categories such as lipid-lowering drugs (11.5% vs.12.2%) and benzodiazepines (12.4%, vs. 11.1% respectively) was similar in Georgia and Wichita (Kansas). The relatively lower usage of most prescription drug medications by persons with CFS in Georgia compared to Wichita may reflect lower seeking of, or lower access to, health care.”

      An alternative reason could be that the two sets of criteria for CFS used were not selecting the same type of patients.

      The current study[1] uses the empiric definition for CFS[2]. As one can see from the paper that gives the criteria involved in the empiric definition, although it is also based on the Fukuda definition[3], a different number of patients satisfy the criteria [2] compared to how the authors used the definition in the initial study of the Wichita population.

      This change looks more significant when one looks at the prevalence rates for CFS obtained in the two cohorts. In the Wichita study[4], the prevalence of CFS was 0.235% (95% confidence interval, 0.142%-0.327%). In the Georgia study[5], the prevalence of CFS was 2.54%, 10.8 times the prevalence in the Wichita study!

      Concerns have been raised[6,7] about the newer method[2] of operationalizing the Fukuda definition[3] that were used in the current study[1]. In the only study[7] using the empiric criteria [2] that I am aware of that did not involve the CDC CFS team, 38% of those chosen as patients with Major Depressive Disorder but not CFS, were found to satisfy the new criteria[2] for CFS.

      References

      1] Boneva RS, Lin JM, Maloney EM, Jones JF, Reeves WC. Use of medications by people with chronic fatigue syndrome and healthy persons: a population-based study of fatiguing illness in Georgia. Health Qual Life Outcomes. 2009 Jul 20;7:67.

      [2] Reeves WC, Wagner D, Nisenbaum R, Jones JF, Gurbaxani B, Solomon L, Papanicolaou DA, Unger ER, Vernon SD, Heim C. Chronic fatigue syndrome--a clinically empirical approach to its definition and study. BMC Med. 2005 Dec 15;3:19.

      [3] Fukuda K, Straus SE, Hickie I, Sharpe MC, Dobbins JG, Komaroff A. The chronic fatigue syndrome; a comprehensive approach to its definition and study. Ann Int Med 1994, 121:953-959.

      [4] Reyes M, Nisenbaum R, Hoaglin DC, Unger ER, Emmons C, Randall B, Stewart JA, Abbey S, Jones JF, Gantz N, Minden S, Reeves WC: Prevalence and incidence of chronic fatigue syndrome in Wichita, Kansas. Arch Int Med 2003, 163:1530-1536.

      [5] Reeves WC, Jones JF, Maloney E, Heim C, Hoaglin DC, Boneva RS, Morrissey M, Devlin R. Prevalence of chronic fatigue syndrome in metropolitan, urban, and rural Georgia. Popul Health Metr. 2007 Jun 8;5:5.

      [6] Jason LA, Richman JA. How science can stigmatize: The case of chronic fatigue syndrome. Journal of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome 2008, 14, 85-103.

      [7] Jason LA, Najar N, Porter N, Reh C. Evaluating the Centers for Disease Control’s empirical chronic fatigue syndrome case definition. Journal of Disability Policy Studies 2009, 20, 93-100. doi:10.1177/1044207308325995


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    1. On 2013 Dec 31, Tom Kindlon commented:

      My published response: Stratification using biological factors should be performed in more CFS studies

      I had a response published. I've no idea why the journal published it in print edition the month before the paper itself was in the print edition.

      Psychol Med. 2010 Feb;40(2):352. doi: 10.1017/S0033291709991322. Epub 2009 Oct 12. Stratification using biological factors should be performed in more CFS studies. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19818203

      Kindlon T, 2010

      Tom Kindlon (https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Tom_Kindlon2/publications/)


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    1. On 2014 Dec 18, CREBP Journal Club commented:

      Interestingly, recurrent acute otitis media (AOM) occurred more often in children originally treated with amoxicillin. However, the corresponding confidence intervals are wide and the results should be interpreted with caution. It is necessary to conduct similar long term follow-up studies to gain more knowledge about the long term effect and possible harms of antibiotic treatment. The authors identified possible confounders such as sex, allergy, and history of recurrent AOM. It might have been relevant to ask the parents “Has your child had antibiotics since after the trial”, and taken this possible confounder into account as well. The article does not give any information on subsequent antibiotic use after the first six months of the post-trial follow-up period. Sensitivity analysis for the primary outcome measure, comparing only children in each group who did not receive antibiotics in the first 6 months of the post-trial follow-up period, showed a risk difference of 32% (95% confidence intervals 13% to 51%).A sensitivity analysis, comparing those who were treated with antibiotics after the six months with those who did not receive any antibiotics after the six months follow-up period, could also have been performed. A Cochrane review on antibiotic treatment of children with AOM3 did not find any differences in AOM recurrence in children treated with antibiotics versus placebo (risk ratio 0.93 95% confidence intervals 0.78-1.10). The included trials in the review all had shorter follow-up periods – up to one year. An update of this Cochrane review should preferably include this present study by Bezáková et al as a long term outcome of antibiotic treatment. As the authors state, the use of antibiotics early in an episode of AOM may impair the natural immune response and weaken the protection against further episodes or may cause an unfavourable shift towards colonisation with resistant pathogens, which are likely to promote recurrence of infection. However, for the first six months of follow-up, recurrence rates in the amoxicillin and placebo group were similar (51% vs 50%, risk difference 1%, 95% confidence intervals -12% to 15%).We find it hard to believe that previous antibiotic treatment of AOM causes late recurrences of AOM – but not early recurrences. It is worthwhile conducting a similar study of both the long (up to one year) and very long (several years) term effects, as more information is needed both of the possible long term benefits and harms of antibiotic treatment of children with AOM. For more information see CREBP Journal Club


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    1. On 2014 Jan 07, Tom Kindlon commented:

      Figures quoted should be considered lower bounds given they have not been adjusted for refusals, etc

      This is a useful contribution to the field and again shows that viruses (in this case EBV) can trigger Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS).

      One point which I don't think is sufficiently clear to anyone who just reads the abstract is that these figures have not been adjusted for refusals, etc. In epidemiology in particular, numbers matter. All the percentages were calculated on the basis of the initial 301 patients but we do not have information on a percentage of these. For example:

      • "Six months after their IM diagnosis, 286 (95%) completed a telephone screening interview." (i.e. 5% did not)

      • "On the basis of the screening interview, 70 of these adolescents (24%) were considered not fully recovered. A clinical evaluation was completed for 53 (76%) of these 70 not fully recovered adolescents; 12 refused, 3 had exclusionary diagnoses (primary depression, transverse myelitis, or anorexia), and 2 did not meet the study criteria (the fatigue predated the IM or the subject was not able to complete the 6-month evaluation in a timely manner)"

      • I am not going to break down the list of others lost to follow-up as Figure 1 does it quite clearly: in total, of the 53 (of 70 who were considered not fully recovered), there was a cumulative loss of 10 at 24 months.

      Figure 1 has the caption, "Follow-up summary for screened nonrecovered participants (n=70). Three-digit numbers represent unique patient identifiers that were used throughout the study.". However in fact, it only includes information on 53.

      Note, this is not a criticism of patients being lost to follow-up, just demonstrating that the figures could be adjusted.

      For example, if we look at the 12 who refused clinical examination at six months and also include the patient who was not able to complete the 6 -month evaluation in a timely manner, we have a total of 13 patients. If the same proportion of them had CFS (i.e. 39/53) as the group that was evaluated, then a further 9.57 on average would have CFS on average. (Of course, one can't have half a person but given we do not know the exact figure, I will use the unrounded figure). This would give a figure of (39+9.57)/301 or 16.13% at 6 months rather than the 13% quoted. Other figures would also proportionally increase on average. If one used the percentage who completed the initial telephone screening instrument, the percentage would actually be (39+9.57)/286 or 16.98% (i.e. 17%) at 6 months.


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    1. On 2015 Nov 19, Peter Gøtzsche commented:

      The authors conclude that "most suicidal events occurred in the context of persistent depression and insufficient improvement without evidence of medication-induced behavioural activation as a precursor." As 17 of the 18 suicide attempts occurred in adolescent patients on fluoxetine (see fig. 1 in the article), we interpret this study quite differently. Like all other SSRIs, fluoxetine increases the risk of suicide in adolescents.

      Robert Whitaker and Peter C. Gøtzsche


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    1. On 2013 Dec 02, Dmytro Demydenko commented:

      Abstract states: "This review summarizes the data available to date on galectin-1 expression in human malignancies". However on page 76 in chapter "Skin" paper using mouse model of melanoma was cited (47. Rubinstein N, Alvarez M, Zwirner NW, et al. Cancer Cell 2004; 5: 241–51.) It was mentioned in original version of manuscript that "this is the only study in mice cited in the manuscript due to its importance". The mentioning was removed prior publication without my agreement.

      Working link to the article 21.VI.2017: http://exp-oncology.com.ua/wp/wp-content/uploads/magazine/752.pdf?upload=


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    1. On 2016 Nov 20, Morten Oksvold commented:

      An investigation committee at Wayne State University (WSU) recommends that 42 articles from Fazlul Sarkar to be retracted (report finished August 31, 2015). This article represents one of them.

      This information was published by Retraction Watch (November 17, 2016) and you can find a link to the full report here:

      http://retractionwatch.com/2016/11/17/details-of-investigative-report-into-sarkar-released-by-aclu/

      This article should therefore no longer be cited.


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    1. On 2016 Aug 30, Ben Goldacre commented:

      This trial has the wrong trial registry ID associated with it on PubMed: both in the XML on PubMed, and in the originating journal article. The ID given is NCT00123456. We have contacted the corresponding author, who has told us that the trial was not registered on ClinicalTrials.gov.

      This comment is being posted as part of the OpenTrials.net project<sup>[1]</sup> , an open database threading together all publicly accessible documents and data on each trial, globally. In the course of creating the database, and matching documents and data sources about trials from different locations, we have identified various anomalies in datasets such as PubMed, and in published papers. Alongside documenting the prevalence of problems, we are also attempting to correct these errors and anomalies wherever possible, by feeding back to the originators. We have corrected this data in the OpenTrials.net database; we hope that this trial’s text and metadata can also be corrected at source, in PubMed and in the accompanying paper.

      Many thanks,

      Jessica Fleminger, Ben Goldacre*

      [1] Goldacre, B., Gray, J., 2016. OpenTrials: towards a collaborative open database of all available information on all clinical trials. Trials 17. doi:10.1186/s13063-016-1290-8 PMID: 27056367

      * Dr Ben Goldacre BA MA MSc MBBS MRCPsych<br> Senior Clinical Research Fellow<br> ben.goldacre@phc.ox.ac.uk<br> www.ebmDataLab.net<br> Centre for Evidence Based Medicine<br> Department of Primary Care Health Sciences<br> University of Oxford<br> Radcliffe Observatory Quarter<br> Woodstock Road<br> Oxford OX2 6GG


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    1. On 2016 Nov 20, Morten Oksvold commented:

      ¨An investigation committee at Wayne State University (WSU) recommends that 42 articles from Fazlul Sarkar to be retracted (report finished August 31, 2015). This article represents one of them.

      This information was published by Retraction Watch (November 17, 2016) and you can find a link to the full report here:

      http://retractionwatch.com/2016/11/17/details-of-investigative-report-into-sarkar-released-by-aclu/

      This article should therefore no longer be cited.


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    1. On 2017 Dec 17, Iain Chalmers commented:

      We agree with Hilda Bastian that poor recruitment leads to waste in research, and work to reduce barriers and improve recruitment is needed. We point this out in the book we co-authored for the public - Testing Treatments, http://en.testingtreatments.org/book/what-can-we-do-to-improve-tests-of-treatments/regulating-tests-of-treatments-help-or-hindrance/do-regulatory-systems-for-testing-treatments-get-it-right/. We wrote "And for researchers planning clinical trials, it can take several years to get from a trial idea to recruiting the first patient, and even then recruitment to trials can be slowed by regulatory requirements. But while researchers try to get studies through the system, people suffer unnecessarily and lives are being lost."

      These same barriers also act to inhibit even considering attempts to undertake trials to address uncertainties. With the result that "clinicians are discouraged from assessing treatments fairly, and instead can continue to prescribe treatments without committing to addressing any uncertainty about them."

      As Hilda rightly concludes, "the clinical trial project still has a lot of basic education to do". But informed recruitment to and retention in clinical trials will depend on far greater general knowledge about why it is important to address uncertainties about the effects of treatments, the adverse effects of failing to address uncertainties, and how uncertainties should be addressed. This implies responsibility for the educational challenge being taken up by educators way beyond "the clinical trials project" (see www.informedhealthchoices.org).


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    2. On 2017 Dec 02, Hilda Bastian commented:

      Another major area of research waste is the high rate of trials abandoned for poor recruitment. Briel M, 2017 suggests that about a quarter of all trials in Switzerland are stopped, generally because of poor recruitment. A study of phase II and III trials closed in 2011 in ClinicalTrials.gov found that 19% "either terminated for failed accrual or completed with less than 85% expected enrolment, seriously compromising their statistical power" (Carlisle B, 2015).

      Bower P, 2014 point to the need to develop more effective methods to increase recruitment and retention of participants. That is critical. We still don't know how to prevent all the waste associated with poor recruitment to clinical trials. However, the Swiss study of stakeholders makes it clear that there are serious inadequacies in coordination and preparedness for many trials (Briel M, 2017). The authors point to clear areas of responsibility for funders of trials and others. The NIHR's 70-day rule, a benchmark for time to recruiting the first patient is one example of a funder trying to reduce this area of waste (NIHR).

      Briel M, 2017 also point to the contribution public negativity about clinical trials makes to poor recruitment. That is a problem for clinicians as well, and, too often, members of IRBs/research ethics committees. In every direction, the clinical trial project still has a lot of basic education to do.


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    1. On 2013 Dec 30, Keizo Takao commented:

      The URL of the gene-brain-phenotyping database has now changed to http://www.mouse-phenotype.org/ (the Mouse Phenotype Database). "ImageLD", "ImageEP", and "ImageFZ", image analysis application softwares used in this article, are now freely available from http://www.mouse-phenotype.org/software.html.


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    1. On 2016 Apr 02, Daniel Tsin commented:

      The first report of human transvaginal cholecystectomy, carried out during a vaginal hysterectomy, was done on August 20, 1999 and published in 2003 by Tsin et al. ( Culdolaparoscopic cholecystectomy during vaginal hysterectomy. Tsin DA, Sequeria RJ, Giannikas G JSLS. 2003 Apr-Jun; 7(2):171-2.) PMID 12856851


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