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Raising children's awareness about their hydration status could be done through a noninvasive biomarker. Urine color (UC) has been validated as a biomarker of hydration in adults and children aged 8-14 years. The aim of this survey was to design and to evaluate the level of understanding and attractiveness of a self-assessment, UC-based hydration tool for children aged 6-11 years. The first phase of the survey consisted of face-to-face interviews during which 84 children identified those graphical elements necessary to understand the hydration message from 6 illustration-based designs containing the UC chart. The graphic elements selected were the basis to create 3 new designs. During the 2nd phase, the level of understanding and attractiveness of these 3 new designs was then evaluated via an online questionnaire by a total of 1,231 children in 3 countries. The design with the highest level of understanding was totally or partially understood by 76% of the participants, independent of age and gender. The levels of understanding, however, differed in the countries. In Indonesia, the levels of understanding of the 3 designs were comparable; whereas in both France (74%) and Mexico (78%), significantly more participants totally and partially understood one of the 3 designs. The levels of attractiveness of the 3 designs were comparable, independent of country, age, and gender. On average, 80% of all participants liked the 3 designs a bit or a lot. Only 14% did not like the designs, and 5% of participants had no opinion regarding attractiveness. These results indicated that three out of four children like and understand the correct hydration message from a strictly illustration-based tool containing the eight-point UC scale. © 2015 S. Karger AG, Basel [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although prenatal exposure to water disinfection by-products does not appear to affect the duration of gestation, its impact on fetal growth remains an open question. The authors studied the associations between prenatal exposure to disinfection by-products and fetal growth restriction (FGR) and preterm birth in the PELAGIE cohort, a French birth cohort comprising 3,421 pregnant women recruited between 2002 and 2006. Exposure was assessed by estimating levels of trihalomethanes (THMs) in tap water during pregnancy and maternal water use and by measuring maternal urinary levels of trichloroacetic acid (TCAA) during early pregnancy in a nested case-control design that compared 174 FGR cases, 114 preterm births, and 399 controls. Higher uptake of THMs (especially brominated THMs) was associated with a higher risk of FGR. Women with TCAA detected in their urine (>0.01 mg/L) had a higher risk of FGR than those with TCAA levels below the detection limit (adjusted odds ratio = 1.8, 95% confidence interval: 0.9, 3.7) and had an odds ratio for preterm birth below 1 (adjusted odds ratio = 0.8, 95% confidence interval: 0.3, 2.6). Results from this prospective study, the first to use a biomarker of disinfection by-product exposure, suggest that prenatal exposure affects fetal growth, but the causal agent or agents remain to be identified. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Studies of the relation between exposure to drinking water disinfection by-products and pregnancy outcomes have been limited by the complexity of the exposure itself (consisting of hundreds of different chemicals), the diverse pathways contributing to exposure, and the difficulty in assessing behavioral determinants of exposure. Therefore, exposure biomarkers offer great promise of enhancing exposure assessment, the limiting factor in the quality and conclusiveness of epidemiologic studies. However, there are significant conceptual and logistical challenges in developing biomarkers for the various constituents of concern that are sensitive to typical variation in exposure, reflective of the time periods of interest, not susceptible to interference from exposures other than water, not subject to reverse causality by correlates of adverse pregnancy outcomes, reflective of the chemicals of interest, and feasible for large-scale epidemiologic studies. Urinary trichloroacetic acid has been the leading candidate exposure biomarker for over a decade, and the first attempt to incorporate it into an epidemiologic study (Am J Epidemiol. 2012;175(4):263–275) is notable—the considerable limitations notwithstanding. In future efforts, investigators need to combine biomarker development with substantive epidemiologic studies to improve on this initial effort and prepare for more definitive research. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The SARS-CoV-2 virus is responsible for an epidemic disease called COVID-19, which was initially evidenced in Wuhan, China, and spread very rapidly in China and around the world. In France, the first isolated case seems now to be reported in December 2019, stage 3 of the COVID-19 epidemic was triggered on March 14 th , the start of the planned containment exit from May 11 th . Healthcare services have faced a large influx of patients who may be beyond their capacity to receive and care, particularly in the Large-East and Ile-de-France regions. Some patients show an evolution of the disease never observed before with other coronaviruses and develop in a few days a very important inflammatory reaction, which can lead to death of patients. A working group of the French Society of Clinical Biology (SFBC) was set up with the objective of providing updated information on the current status of the biological prescriptions (focusing on biochemistry ones) and their evolution during the epidemic, and of analyzing the biological parameters associated with comorbidities and patient evolution in order to link biological results with medical events. The expanded working group covers all sectors of medical biology in France and extends to the French-speaking world: hospital sectors (CHU and CH, Army Training Hospitals) and the private sector opening a field of view on the biological situation in establishments for dependent elderly, social establishments and clinical medical institutions. The purpose of this article is the presentation of this working group and its immediate and future actions.

Objectives: To present the 2017 Clinical Practice Guidelines of the French Society of Otorhinolaryngology concerning the role of the ENT specialist in the diagnosis of pediatric obstructive sleep apnea-hypopnea syndrome. This manuscript specifically focuses on diagnostic investigations apart from sleep studies., Methods: A multidisciplinary work-group drew up a first version of the guidelines, graded according to level of evidence following the GRADE grading system. The final version was obtained by including the suggestions and comments from the editorial group., Results: At the end of the process, guidelines were established and graded regarding diagnostic investigations apart from sleep studies, in particular respiratory functional tests, biological markers, and morphologic assessment under induced sleep (drug-induced sleep endoscopy (DISE) and cine-MRI)., (Copyright © 2019. Published by Elsevier Masson SAS.)

The purpose of this study was to examine the prognostic value of serum ECM biomarkers in hypertensive patients with no history of cardiovascular events. In a community-based cohort study of 125 hypertensive patients free of cardiovascular events, we collected clinical data and blood samples to assess serum levels of amino-terminal propeptide of type III procollagen (PIIINP), matrix metalloproteinase type 1(MMP1) and tissue inhibitor of MMPs type 1(TIMP1). Left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) was assessed using the ECG Cornell product. Patients were followed up for death or cardiovascular hospitalisation. We used Cox regression models to assess the prognostic value of ECM biomarkers. The sample included 60.8% women; the mean (±SD) age was 62.9 (±11.4) years. Patients were followed up for a median of 5.5 years, during which 23 events (five deaths) occurred. PIIINP (3.2 ± 1.0 vs. 2.6 ± 0.8 μg/L, P = 0.001) and TIMP1 (886 ± 168 vs. 751 ± 202 μg/L, P < 0.001) levels were higher in the presence of LVH than with no LVH. Basal MMP1 serum levels were significantly associated with CV events (MMP1: HR, 1.06; 95%CI [1.02-1.09]). Adjusting for confounders did not modify this result. Cardiac fibrosis, as assessed with serum ECM biomarkers, might develop early in hypertensive patients and is predictive of cardiovascular events or death., (© 2012 The Authors Fundamental and Clinical Pharmacology © 2012 Société Française de Pharmacologie et de Thérapeutique.)