PubMed Health⌕ Search

Biomedical subjects

Kenneth J Rothman

Publications and source records attributed to Kenneth J Rothman.

43 records · Page 3Linked to original sources
PubMed2002

Chromosomal anomalies among the offspring of women with gestational diabetes.

A limited body of data over the past 35 years has suggested that autoimmunity may be responsible for some cases of aneuploidy. The role of diabetes mellitus in the etiology of chromosomal anomalies has been infrequently studied. This study was designed to compare the prevalence of chromosome abnormalities among the offspring of women with gestational diabetes and the offspring of women without it. The authors used data from 7,332 women who underwent amniocentesis in a prospective study of pregnancy outcome (1984-1988) and examined the prevalence of autosomal and sex chromosome defects associated with gestational diabetes. Among the offspring of 231 women with gestational diabetes, the crude prevalence of chromosomal defects was twice as high as that seen in the offspring of 7,101 women without gestational diabetes. These anomalies were predominantly numeric sex chromosome defects. After adjusting for potential confounding by maternal age, body mass index, education, and first-trimester exposures in multiple logistic regression analysis, the authors found that women with gestational diabetes were 7.7 times as likely (95% confidence interval: 2.8, 21.1) to have an infant with a numeric sex chromosome defect as those without gestational diabetes. These results support the theory that some women who develop gestational diabetes may have underlying biochemical changes that induce nondisjunction and the development of chromosomal defects.

Adult↗
PubMed2002

Prevalence of serious eosinophilia and incidence of Churg-Strauss syndrome in a cohort of asthma patients.

BACKGROUND: Some leukotriene receptor antagonists, such as zafirlukast and montelukast, have been associated with systemic eosinophilia, with interest focused on Churg-Strauss syndrome (CSS). OBJECTIVE: To calculate the background incidence rate of CSS and prevalence of eosinophilia among people with asthma who have not used leukotriene receptor antagonists. METHODS: We conducted a cohort study in the setting of three geographically diverse UnitedHealthcare health plans. We identified 36,230 people who received a diagnosis of asthma during the period October 1994 through September 1997. We identified 241 potential cases from the claims data. Using a standardized hospital record abstract form, nurses abstracted relevant clinical data from the hospital charts of potential cases. We applied several a priori case definitions to the abstracted clinical data and computed incidence rates of CSS among patients with asthma. We additionally used these data to compute the prevalence of serious eosinophilia. RESULTS: Incidence rates of definite CSS among asthma patients ranged from zero (90% confidence interval 0.0 to 23.0) to 67 (90% confidence interval 22.5 to 160.6) cases per 1,000,000 person-years, depending on the definition used. All patients who met the criteria for CSS expressed symptoms consistent with mild asthma. CONCLUSIONS: This report is the first direct measurement of the incidence rate of CSS among asthma patients. We believe that the prevalence and incidence information that we report is a useful description of population rates in the United States for these conditions.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2002

Seasonal variation in hospital discharge diagnosis of atrial fibrillation: a population-based study.

BACKGROUND: Cardiovascular events such as acute myocardial infarction and stroke vary seasonally, with a peak incidence during the winter and a trough during the summer. Few data exist on the seasonal variation of atrial fibrillation. METHODS: We examined the association among season, outdoor temperature, and risk of atrial fibrillation. We identified 32,992 subjects, age 50-89 years, in a random sample of half the people with an incident hospital discharge diagnosis of atrial fibrillation in the Danish National Hospital Discharge Register from 1980 to 1993. We used a periodic regression model to evaluate any seasonal distribution. RESULTS: We found a winter peak and a summer trough in the incidence of atrial fibrillation. The relative incidence of atrial fibrillation during winter as compared with summer, estimated as the ratio of the incidence in the month of the peak relative to the incidence in the month of the trough, was small (relative risk = 1.20; 95% confidence interval = 1.12-1.29). Stratification by sex, age, and the presence or absence of diabetes and underlying cardiovascular diseases did not affect the seasonal pattern. We also found an inverse relation between mean outdoor temperature and incidence of atrial fibrillation. CONCLUSION: The risk of atrial fibrillation was modestly higher during the winter and was inversely associated with outdoor temperature.

Aged↗