News archive

No increased risks for babies, and for some serious neonatal complications lower risks. This is the result of the largest study to date on the safety of newborn babies whose mothers were vaccinated against COVID-19 during pregnancy. The study is a collaboration between Swedish and Norwegian researchers and is published in the journal JAMA.

Recent and unintentional weight loss is associated with an increased risk of a cancer diagnosis in the coming year, according to a new study in JAMA. Researchers from Karolinska Institutet and others behind the study urge healthcare professionals and the public to be vigilant about sudden and unintentional weight loss.

One in three children who suffer from bacterial meningitis live with permanent neurological disabilities due to the infection. This is according to a new epidemiological study led by Karolinska Institutet and published in leading medical journal JAMA Network Open.

A Scandinavian collaboration led by KI researchers shows that of individuals treated in specialist care for major depressive disorder (MDD), many have a severe prognosis, for instance experiencing recurrence, developing other psychiatric disorders, requiring inpatient treatment, and some even dying by suicide. This research was based on 273,000 individuals with MDD in Sweden, Denmark, and Norway. The findings are published in Lancet Regional Health Europe.

In a review paper published in the European Journal of Epidemiology, researchers from Karolinska Institutet and Lund University describe the content and quality of the Swedish Medical Birth Register (MBR), using original Medical Birth Register data, Swedish-language and international publications based on the register. The researchers conclude that the register contains high-quality pregnancy-related information on more than 5 million births during five decades.

Researchers at the Centre for Psychiatry Research at Karolinska Institutet have completed a large study evaluating a screening instrument for assessing the risk of suicide in connection with a visit to an emergency psychiatric clinic. The researchers found a link between screening score and suicide risk a short time after the emergency visit. The study is published in the journal Psychological Medicine.

Cholinesterase inhibitors are a group of drugs recommended for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease, but their effects on cognition have been debated and few studies have investigated their long-term effects. A new study involving researchers from Karolinska Institutet and published in the journal Neurology shows persisting cognitive benefits and reduced mortality for up to five years after diagnosis.

The Charlson co-morbidity index (CCI) is a disease index that was originally created to predict short-term mortality but is increasingly used as a proxy for comorbidity burden, and is often used as a co-variate, for instance in regression models. There are currently several available versions of the CCI. The existence of multiple morbidity indices creates confusion, increases the risk of mistakes and requires individual researchers to spend considerable time examining included codes.

DOAC (direct oral anticoagulant) pills are used in the treatment of atrial fibrillation by preventing blood clots. Even though blood clots are thought to contribute to complications from the new coronavirus infection, users of this class of drug do not seem to be protected against severe COVID-19, reports a large Swedish registry study from Karolinska Institutet published in The Journal of Internal Medicine.

Concerns have been raised that the use of a common group of medications called RAS inhibitors could facilitate SARS-CoV-2 infection, impact COVID-19 disease severity and worsen prognosis. However, in a new nationwide registry-based study from Karolinska Institutet, including almost 1.4 million patients, use of RAS inhibitors was not associated with increased risk of hospitalisation or death from COVID-19. The study has been published in the European Journal of Heart Failure.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet and Danderyd Hospital have studied the risk of additional myocardial infarctions and early death in severely obese patients who undergo metabolic surgery following a myocardial event. The registry study covering 1,018 individuals shows a lower risk of additional myocardial infarctions and improved survival that cannot be simply attributed to the loss of weight. The study is published in the journal Circulation.

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, NAFLD, affects nearly one in four adults in Europe and the U.S. Earlier research has demonstrated an increased risk of death in patients with NAFLD and advanced fibrosis or cirrhosis. Now, researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and Massachusetts General Hospital in the U.S. show that mortality increases with disease severity, but even mild fatty liver disease is linked to higher mortality. The findings have been published in the scientific journal Gut.

Two recent studies were unable to rule out that H1N1 (“swine flu”) vaccination (“Pandemrix”) and seasonal influenza vaccination given to pregnant women might be associated with autism spectrum disorder in the offspring. Now, a large study by researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine, refutes any such association.

The vitality of preterm infants should be assessed with an Apgar score, a tool used to measure the health of newborns immediately after birth. That is the conclusion by researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden who in a large observational study examined the value of Apgar scores for preterm infants. The findings are published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Repeated measurements of the biomarker FIB-4 in the blood every few years can predict the risk of developing severe liver disease, according to a new study from Karolinska Institutet published in the Journal of Hepatology. The risk of liver cirrhosis increases if the levels of this biomarker rise between two testing occasions.

The risk of developing more than one skin melanoma over a ten-year period has seen a ten-fold increase in Sweden since the 1960s, a new study by researchers at Karolinska Institutet and Lund University published in The Journal of the National Cancer Institute reports. The researchers suspect that the increase is due to a change in holiday customs with more active sunbathing and overseas trips to southern climes.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet show that different measures of psychopathology can be combined into a single factor, “p”, which predicts the patient’s prognosis and need of extra support. The general factor of psychopathology reflects the overall risk of adverse psychiatric outcomes with an accuracy equal to that currently used for intelligence, they report in a paper published in World Psychiatry.

Among adults with chronic viral hepatitis at high risk of liver cancer, those who took low-dose aspirin long-term were less likely to develop liver cancer or to die from liver-related causes. The findings come from a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine and conducted by a team led by investigators at Karolinska Institutet and Örebro University Hospital in Sweden and Massachusetts General Hospital in the U.S.

There is a strong correlation between high blood pressure in patients in the emergency room and an increased risk of future cardiovascular disease, researchers from Karolinska Institutet report in a large registry study published in the journal Hypertension. Their conclusion is that blood-pressure measurements in the emergency room can be used as a tool for reducing morbidity and mortality rates through early preventive intervention.

While blood samples can reliably identify people with a low risk of developing severe liver disease, better methods are needed in primary care for identifying people in most need of care. These are some of the conclusions of a large registry-based study by researchers at Karolinska Institutet published in the esteemed journal Gastroenterology.

Drivers, factory workers, and cleaners are three times more likely to develop type 2 diabetes than teachers and physiotherapists. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have studied how the occurrence of diabetes differs between occupations in Sweden. The results are being published in the scientific journal Diabetologia and are also presented at the European diabetes conference in Barcelona in September.

Women have an increased risk of high-grade cervical lesions returning after surgery if there have been lesions in the resection margin, especially if high-risk HPV (human papillomavirus) is found in the follow-up test, reports a new longitudinal study from Karolinska Institutet published in The American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. The researchers also found that many other diseases can be independent risk factors in lesion recurrence.

A group of biostatistical scientists at the Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics (MEB) have been awarded a research environment grant of SEK 13 million from the Swedish Research Council for research into the development and application of statistical methods for register-based research.

In a new register-based study, Swedish and Danish researchers show that common drugs for Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), so called TNF-α inhibitors, are not linked to increased risk of serious infections in children. Previous studies have shown an increased risk in corresponding adult patients. The results are published in The Lancet Gastroenterology & Hepatology.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet now quickly generate new knowledge on clinically important drug-drug interactions associated to the anticoagulant warfarin.

Patients with a near relative that has experienced a myocardial infarction, has an over 60 % increased risk of also being afflicted when attending the emergency with chest pain. Researchers from Karolinska Institutet have observed this association by combining data in a completely new way. The results are published in European Heart Journal: Acute Cardiovascular Care.