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Despite improvement in vaccinations, Hepatitis B remains a major health concern due to the difficulty of prevention even in low endemic areas such as Europe. In this report we describe the performance characteristics of the new HBsAg Next Qualitative and HBsAg Next Confirmatory assays designed for blood screening and diagnostic purposes on the Alinity i and ARCHITECT fully automated systems. The new assays were evaluated in comparison to the ARCHITECT HBsAg Qualitative II and Confirmatory assays on seroconversion, analytical sensitivity, and mutant panels along with testing of over 400 clinical positive samples demonstrating excellent improvements in sensitivity. Additionally, specificity was shown to be improved with testing of over 6000 donors and 240 diagnostic specimens. Overall, the Alinity i & ARCHITECT HBsAg Next assays have taken a step forward in improving the detection of Hepatitis B virus.

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BACKGROUND: Paediatric patients with an unanticipated poor grade of laryngoscopic view during tracheal intubation represent a challenging situation potentially associated with increased morbidity and mortality. The aim of this study was to investigate the frequency of modified Cormack-Lehane (MCL) views and to elucidate variables for poor views in a large collective of children without anticipated airway difficulties. METHODS: The departmental anaesthesia patient database was searched for patients who had undergone general anaesthesia with tracheal intubation between January 2007 and March 2017. Inclusion criteria were age from birth to 17.99 years, general anaesthesia with tracheal intubation using direct laryngoscopy, no history, symptoms or signs of a difficult airway and the best obtained MCL view documented in the database. Patient- and anaesthesia-related variables associated with a poor view (MCL IIb, III and IV) were elucidated using a logistic regression model. RESULTS: In all, 22 965 patients were included; of these, 17 593 were observed only once. The prevalence of the first observed MCL views I, IIa, IIb, III and IV was 90.6%, 8.5%, 0.86%, 0.05% and 0%, respectively. The logistic regression model indicates that age and gender are the most important variables associated with MCL views IIb and III in the model. The probability for MCL views IIb/III decreases across the first 5-7 years before increasing again. CONCLUSIONS: The incidence of a poor grade of laryngoscopic view was found to be very low in children with a normal airway. They mainly occurred in infants and adolescent patients and were more common in male patients.

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BACKGROUND: Data on airway dimensions in pediatric patients are important for proper selection of pediatric airway equipment such as endotracheal tubes, double-lumen tubes, bronchial blockers, or stents. The aim of the present work was to provide a synopsis of the available data on pediatric airway dimensions. METHODS: A systematic literature search was carried out in the PubMed database, Scopus, Embase, Web of Science, Prisma, and Google Scholar and secondarily completed by a reference search. Based on inclusion and exclusion criteria, a final selection of 109 studies with data on pediatric airway dimensions published from 1923 to 2018 were further analyzed. RESULTS: Six different airway measurement methods were identified. They included anatomical examinations, chest X-ray, computed tomography, magnetic resonance tomography, bronchoscopy, and ultrasound. Anatomical studies were more abundant compared to other methods. Data provided were very heterogeneously presented and powered. In addition, due to different study conditions, they are hardly comparable. Among all, anatomical and computer tomography studies are thought to provide the most reliable data. Ultrasound is an upcoming technique to estimate airway parameters of fetus and premature infants. There was, in general, a lack of comprehensive studies providing a complete range of airway dimensions in larger groups of patients from birth to adolescence. CONCLUSIONS: This work revealed a large heterogeneity of studies providing data on pediatric airway dimensions, making it impossible to compare, or assemble them to normograms for clinical use. Comprehensive studies in large population of children are needed to provide full range nomograms on pediatric airway dimensions.

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BACKGROUND: This study investigated the extent of traditional knowledge and use of homemade herbal remedies for livestock by farmers in 3 Swiss cantons (Aargau, Zurich, Schaffhausen). The study focused on organic farms. METHODS: At 21 farms, 24 farmers aged 36-83 years were interviewed with a semi-structured, detailed questionnaire. For each homemade herbal remedy, the plant species, mode of preparation, source of knowledge, and application were gathered. Satisfaction of the farmers with the application was estimated with the aid of a visual analogue scale. RESULTS: Information on a total of 165 homemade remedies was collected of which 123 contained a single plant species only (homemade mono-species herbal remedies, HMHR). The 123 HMHR were selected for this paper. They corresponded to 150 different applications and originated from 43 plant species from 30 families. Plants belonging to the families of Asteraceae, Lamiaceae, and Apiaceae were used most frequently. The single most applied species were Matricaria recutita L., Calendula officinalis L., Symphytum officinale L., and Coffea arabica L. For each formulation, 1-4 different applications were mentioned, most of them for cattle. The main applications were skin alterations and sores, gastrointestinal and metabolic diseases as well as infertility and diseases of the female genitalia. Approximately half of the applications were used during the last 12 months prior to the interview. CONCLUSION: This study shows that HMHR are used by Swiss farmers for the treatment of different livestock diseases. In general, the farmers were satisfied with the outcome of the applications.

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Here we describe a novel microarray platform that integrates all functions needed to perform any array-based experiment in a compact instrument on the researcher's laboratory benchtop. Oligonucle otide probes are synthesized in situ via a light- activated process within the channels of a three-dimensional microfluidic reaction carrier. Arrays can be designed and produced within hours according to the user's requirements. They are processed in a fully automatic workflow. We have characterized this new platform with regard to dynamic range, discrimination power, reproducibility and accuracy of biological results. The instrument detects sample RNAs present at a frequency of 1:100 000. Detection is quantitative over more than two orders of magnitude. Experiments on four identical arrays with 6398 features each revealed a mean coefficient of variation (CV) value of 0.09 for the 6398 unprocessed raw intensities indicating high reproducibility. In a more elaborate experiment targeting 1125 yeast genes from an unbiased selection, a mean CV of 0.11 on the fold change level was found. Analyzing the transcriptional response of yeast to osmotic shock, we found that biological data acquired on our platform are in good agreement with data from Affymetrix GeneChips, quantitative real-time PCR and--albeit somewhat less clearly--to data from spotted cDNA arrays obtained from the literature.

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