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Introduction: Registries represent a main source of data to the advances in medical literature. In stroke medicine, they serve as key points of discussion and elaboration for future clinical trials, as well as evaluation tools for several treatment modalities in different patient populations. We performed an analysis of recent stroke registries to evaluate their impact in literature. Methods: We performed PubMed and Google Scholar search using keywords with Boolean operators to identify studies deriving from stroke registries between January 2000 and June 2021. All registries identified were further characterized regarding study design, sample size, number of centers, number of peer reviewed articles or conference abstracts originating from it, with their respective number of citations and impact factor of journals. Results: A total of 51 registries were identified, comprising 43584 patients. Forty-three (84.3%) were prospective. Forty-five (88.2%) were multicenter. Sixteen (31.4%) focused in a specific device for mechanical thrombectomy. Twenty-seven (52.9%) were registered on clinicaltrials.gov. The most participating countries were United States in 16 (31.4%) and Germany in 8 (15.7%). Twenty-seven (52.9%) registries originated a total of 295 peer-reviewed articles, 6841 citations and a sum of impact factors of 1282.8. The median impact factor of journals publishing articles from registries was 5.51 (interquartile range, 3.27-7.91). The median number of citations per article was 13 (interquartile range, 4-37). Between registered and unregistered registries, there was no significant difference in the median number of publications (P=0.08), citations (P=0.158) or impact factor (P=0.124). Between registries specific and unspecific to a certain device, there was no significant difference in median number of publications (P=1.67), citations (P=0.631) or impact factor (P=0.509). Conclusions: Stroke registries provide a meaningful data source for literature regardless of registration or specificity to a certain device, and represent a key mechanism in the advances of stroke care. Contribution to stroke registries are key mechanism to elucidate clinical questions that require large sample size and should be incentivized.

The premalignant process in the gastric mucosa was studied by gastroscopic surveys of Colombian populations, and the prevalence of superficial gastritis, chronic atrophic gastritis, and intestinal metaplasia was calculated for population samples having a very high gastric cancer risk (Narino), very low risk (Cartagena), and intermediate risk (Cali). The prevalence of individuals with normal mucosa in successive age groups was used to estimate "depletion" curves, which were taken as indicators of the dynamics of the premalignant process in each community. Differences corresponding to the geographic variation in stomach cancer risk were found: In the high-risk areas of Narino, around 75% of the population developed some type of gastritis by 45 years of age, whereas in the low- and intermediate-risk population of Cartagena and Cali, the proportion of such lesions did not exceed 50% at age 45 or thereafter. The effect of environmental factors in early life seemed to be important in determining the prevalence of lesions in each population.

A qualitative and quantitative analysis of urinary lipids in the nephrotic syndrome is presented. The following lipids were identified in the urine of patients with the nephrotic syndrome: free cholesterol, cholesterol esters, triglycerides, free fatty acids, and phospholipids. Glass paper chromatography identified the cholesterol esters as palmitate, oleate, linoleate, and arachidonate, and identified the phospholipids as phosphatidylcholine, phosphatidylethanolamine, and phosphatidylserine. Urinary lipid excretion was much greater in patients with the nephrotic syndrome than in patients with chronic renal disease and minimal proteinuria, or in patients with hyperlipidemia from other causes. Urinary lipid excretion varied widely among the 13 patients with the nephrotic syndrome studied, and no quantitative correlation with serum lipid levels was observed. However, qualitatively at least, the proportion of cholesterol esters excreted in the urine was similar to the proportion of these esters in plasma. A good correlation was found between lipid excretion and glomerular permeability. Furthermore, during steroid therapy urinary lipid excretion decreased concomitant with a decrease in proteinuria. All these observations support the idea that lipiduria in the nephrotic syndrome is related to protein loss and that most of the lipid in the urine enters the glomerular filtrate in the form of lipoproteins.

Cancer registration in developing countries offers special research opportunities and presents special problems. Findings in these registries not only provide information about the local situation but may also help in the study of trends observed in other countries. Cancer incidence in wealthy western communities tends to show similarities, and often contrasts with patterns common in developing communities. As an example, high rates for colonic and pulmonary cancer and declining rates for gastric and cervical cancer are as characteristic of wealthy communities as they are uncharacteristic of developing communities. These are good reasons for the encouragement of cancer registration in developing countries. We started our work in Colombia as a cancer survey, which was planned to last approximately 3 years. After the planned survey was accomplished, it became clear that its continuation would be highly beneficial and also quite simple because the personnel had already been trained and their experience could be used to great advantage. This explains why our registry uses a combination of the registry and survey techniques: we gather data for all periods of time, but most intensely during the summer months, when we employ medical students for a survey-type activity.

A nutrition survey was done in four Colombian villages situated in the rural area of Narino, previously identified as exhibiting different levels of risk for gastric cancer and its precursor lesions. The survey was based on personal visits by trained interviewers to a random sample of families in each village. The major findings of the survey reflected a higher consumption of fava beans in villages with high indices of gastric cancer risk and a higher consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables in villages where such indices were lower. Excessive salt intake and lower potassium intake in villages with a high risk of gastric cancer were suggested, but further work is required to test this preliminary observation. A generally low intake of animal proteins and a high intake of cereals in Narino did not discriminate between villages at different levels of risk to gastric cancer and its precursors.

We conducted a case-control study to evaluate the effectiveness of BCG vaccination in preventing childhood tuberculosis (TB) in Cali, Colombia. We ascertained 178 cases aged 0 to 14 years from the respiratory clinics with cough or fever for at least three weeks and a positive chest X-ray for TB, as well as 320 controls who were from the same households but had no symptoms and negative X-rays. Using matched set multiple logistic regression analysis, we found the age- and sex-adjusted relative risk (RR) of TB among vaccinees compared with non-vaccinees to be 0.84 with 95% confidence limits (CL) from 0.43 to 1.62. There was, however, a significantly lowered relative risk of TB with increasing time since vaccination (RR = 0.83 per year since time of vaccination with 95% CL from 0.74 to 0.94.)