An inappropriate immunological response to an unknown antigen has been suggested to play a role in the pathogenesis of hidradenitis suppurativa (HS). Studies have identified elevated levels of several proinflammatory cytokines, including interleukin (IL)-17A and tumour necrosis factor-α, nominating these as possible therapeutic targets.1 Secukinumab is an IL-17A monoclonal antibody, which binds to IL-17A and inhibits the cytokine interaction with the IL-17 receptors, inhibiting the inflammatory cascade. Here we report a case of a 47-year-old man, with Hurley stage III lesions on the neck, axillae, breasts, genital skin and buttocks, who had experienced only temporary benefit from different medical treatments over several years. After 12 weeks of treatment with secukinumab, the number of lesions reported by the patient within the period of the last 4 weeks was reduced from 23 to seven, his pain visual analogue scale (VAS) score was reduced from 5 to 3 and pain/utility/handicap VAS score was reduced from 7 to 4. These results may be taken to imply that IL-17 blockade could provide a possible therapeutic approach in the treatment of HS.

Objectives: Health promotion is on the global agenda. The risks targeted include smoking, hazardous alcohol consumption, nutrition and insufficient physical activity. Implementation of clinical health promotion, however, remains a major challenge. While several processes, models and frameworks for strategic implementation exist, very few have been tested in randomized designs. Testing a strategic implementation process for clinical health promotion was only recently attempted via a randomized clinical trial on the World Health Organization Health Promotion Hospitals Recognition Process. The randomized clinical trial showed that the process improved central parts of implementation. To complement these findings, this nested qualitative study aimed to explore experiences and perceptions of staff and managers, who had completed the process, and generate hypotheses for improvements.

Methods: We interviewed a purposeful sample of 45 key informants from four countries, who worked at clinical departments and had undertaken the World Health Organization Health Promotion Hospitals implementation process. The informants included 14 managers, 14 medical doctors, 13 nurses and 4 other clinical staff. Interview transcripts were analyzed using qualitative content analysis and an inductive approach to coding and categorization supported by QSR NVivo.

Results: The informants' experiences and perceptions centered around four global themes concerning (1) awareness, cultural re-orientation and integration; (2) learnings; (3) normalization and legitimacy and (4) a more evidence-based, structured and systematic approach to clinical health promotion. Informants were positive toward the implementation process, although it was sometimes challenging. The suggested improvements to increase acceptability related to the patient survey, time consumption, translation, tailoring to local circumstances and in-advance training.

Conclusions: Managers and staff were positive toward the World Health Organization Health Promotion Hospitals process, which was perceived to bring about positive changes and learnings. The findings also suggest that the implementation process may be improved by minor adjustments to process elements and design. It is our recommendation to use the process in clinical departments to further implementation of clinical health promotion.

OBJECTIVES: Most studies show that marriage conveys a survival advantage. Whether this is valid also for stroke patients is unclear. Results of studies have been inconsistent and conflicting.

MATERIAL & METHODS: We studied 1-week and 1-month stroke case-fatality in relation to marital status (married, unmarried, divorced, and widowed) in all patients admitted to hospital for incident stroke in Denmark during 2003-2012. We used information from Danish registries on stroke merged to information on age, sex, marital status, stroke severity, stroke subtype, socioeconomic status, cardiovascular risk profile, and causes of death. We studied deaths due to the index stroke within the first week and month after stroke. Multivariate Cox regression models were applied to estimate cause-specific hazards and relative risks.

RESULTS: We included 60507 patients with an incident stroke of which 51.19% were married, 9.47% were unmarried, 13.29% were divorced, and 26.05% were widowers. Death within the first week and first month was caused by stroke in 2110 (3.5%) and 3423 (5.7%) patients, respectively. Compared to married stroke patients, 1-week/1-month case-fatality (by stroke) was lower for the unmarried (HR (hazard ratio):0.69/0.74), divorced (HR:0.69/0.72), and widowed (HR:0.80/0.74) men and the unmarried (HR:0.84/0.86), divorced (HR:0.82/0.80), and widowed (HR:0.87/0.88) women with stroke.

CONCLUSIONS: One-week and one-month case-fatality by stroke was lower among the unmarried, divorced, and widowed than among the married stroke patients. Selection by so-called mortality displacement linked to shorter life expectancy among divorced, widowed, and singles may explain our findings.

BACKGROUND: Several biologics targeting the Th17 pathway have been developed for the treatment of psoriatic arthritis (PsA), a disabling disease with moderate response and an increased incidence of serious infections to first-line biologics (TNF-α antagonists). Th17 inhibitors could replace TNF-α antagonists as first-line biologic agents. We determined the overall treatment effect of Th17 pathway inhibitors compared to placebo or active control on American College of Rheumatology (ACR) 20 response at week 12 (primary objective), risk of infections, discontinuation of treatment due to adverse events, and serious adverse events during the placebo-controlled period (12-24 weeks) in adults with active PsA in published randomized controlled trials.

METHODS: The SCOPUS database was searched. The Cochrane risk of bias tool was used for assessing quality. The pooled relative risk (RR) was derived from random effects models.

RESULTS: Seven randomized controlled trials were included which randomized 1,718 patients to Th17 inhibitors and 840 to placebo. Patients treated with Th17 inhibitors had an RR of 2.04 (95% CI: 1.79-2.33; p < 0.001) for achieving an ACR20 response at week 12 (I2 = 0%; p = 0.89) compared to placebo-treated patients. There was no evidence of publication bias. The result was consistent for study phase and outcome (ACR50/70), mechanism of action and TNF-α naivety. RR of infections was 1.06 (0.91-1.23), that of candida infections was 3.35 (0.75-14.95), that of serious adverse events was 0.82 (0.42-1.59) and that of discontinuation of treatment was 0.54 (0.31-0.93) among treated versus placebo subjects. No incident cases of tuberculosis were reported.

CONCLUSION: In patients with active PsA, biologics targeting the Th17 axis produce a clinically significant improvement in joint disease activity with acceptable safety and tolerability for short-term treatment compared to placebo.

RATIONALE: Whether self-regulation of food intake in weight loss maintenance (WLM) differs between being a short-term maintainer (having maintained without regaining less than 12 months) and a long-term maintainer (having maintained without regaining at least 12 months) is under-researched.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to explore the self-regulatory strategies and self-efficacy beliefs applied by short- and long-term maintainers to the complex set of behaviours comprising food intake in WLM, and to obtain a better understanding of their challenges in the various food-intake processes in WLM.

METHOD: Individual interviews (14 female/4 male) were conducted with nine Danish short- and nine long-term weight loss maintainers. The Health Action Process Approach (HAPA) was applied post-hoc to organise data and support analyses, since the approach focuses on both the cognitions (e.g., self-efficacy, the nature of which differs depending on the phase of behaviour change) and self-regulatory strategies (e.g., action planning and coping planning) involved in behaviour change.

RESULTS: Self-regulatory strategies and self-efficacy beliefs varied between the food-related behaviours and between short- and long-term maintainers. Consistent with the progression suggested by HAPA, with repeated use of action and coping planning, long-term maintainers had formed habitual routines, not only allowing them more flexibility, but also providing them stronger self-control in the behaviours related to WLM such as buying and storing food, and eating at social gatherings. The short-term maintainers often displayed a 'weight loss mind-set.' The short-term maintainers focused on the avoidance of certain behaviours, showed less self-regulatory flexibility, and exhibited more detailed action planning, but their interviews also inferred that they had ambitions to build strong WLM-habits, maintenance, and recovery self-efficacy.

CONCLUSION: The contribution of this study is a more comprehensive view on food intake as an outcome of a set of complex behaviours, revealing insights into the differences in cognitions and strategies applied to the task of WLM, between short- and long-term maintainers.

BACKGROUND: The development of digital health solutions for current health care settings requires an understanding of the complexities of the health care system, organizational setting, and stakeholder groups and of the underlying interplay between stakeholders and the technology. The digital health solution was founded on the basis of an information and communication technology platform and point-of-care devices enabling home-based monitoring of disease progression and treatment outcome for patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA).

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this paper is to describe and discuss the applicability of an iterative evaluation process in guiding the development of a digital health solution as a technical and organizational entity in three different health care systems.

METHODS: The formative evaluation comprised the methodologies of contextual understanding, participatory design, and feasibility studies and included patients, healthcare professionals, and hardware and software developers. In total, the evaluation involved 45 patients and 25 health care professionals at 3 clinical sites in Europe.

RESULTS: The formative evaluation served as ongoing and relevant input to the development process of the digital health solution. Through initial field studies key stakeholder groups were identified and knowledge obtained about the different health care systems, the professional competencies involved in routine RA treatment, the clinics' working procedures, and the use of communication technologies. A theory-based stakeholder evaluation achieved a multifaceted picture of the ideas and assumptions held by stakeholder groups at the three clinical sites, which also represented the diversity of three different language zones and cultures. Experiences and suggestions from the patients and health care professionals were sought through participatory design processes and real-life testing and actively used for adjusting the visual, conceptual, and practical design of the solution. The learnings captured through these activities aided in forming the solution and in developing a common understanding of the overall vision and aim of this solution. During this process, the 3 participating sites learned from each other's feed-back with the ensuing multicultural inspiration. Moreover, these efforts also enabled the consortium to identify a 'tipping point' during a pilot study, revealing serious challenges and a need for further development of the solution. We achieved valuable learning during the evaluation activities, and the remaining challenges have been clarified more extensively than a single-site development would have discovered. The further obstacles have been defined as has the need to resolve these before designing and conducting a real-life clinical test to assess the outcome from a digital health solution for RA treatment.

CONCLUSIONS: A formative evaluation process with ongoing involvement of stakeholder groups from 3 different cultures and countries have helped to inform and influence the development of a novel digital health solution, and provided constructive input and feedback enabling the consortium to control the development process.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate if the relative volume of bone marrow lesions (BMLs) changed in patients with knee osteoarthritis (OA) during a therapeutic study.

DESIGN: This study is a sub-study to a larger clinical trial which compared the clinical effects of intra-articular corticosteroid injection in knee OA to placebo injection, both given prior to exercise therapy. Clinical assessment using the Knee injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score (KOOS) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) examinations with BML assessments were performed at baseline and follow-up after 14 weeks and 26 weeks, respectively. The BML volume was determined using a computer assisted method focusing on participants with valid baseline and follow-up MRI examinations. Any changes in BML and KOOS were analyzed and investigated for associations.

RESULTS: Fifty participants received steroid and placebo injection, respectively, of which 41 and 45 had complete MRI examinations at week 14, and 36 and 33 at week 26, respectively. All participants received 12 weeks of exercise. A significant change in relative BML volume was observed between the corticosteroid group and the placebo group after 14 weeks [-1.1% vs 2.7%; between-group difference, 3.8% (95% CI 0.5-7.0)] but not after 26 weeks [0.8% vs 1.6%; between-group difference, 0.8% (95% CI -2.8 to 4.4)]. No significant association was found between changes in relative BML volume and KOOS.

CONCLUSIONS: Despite the statistically significant difference in BML volume at 14 weeks after corticosteroid injection and 12 weeks exercise therapy compared to placebo injection and exercise, there is very little evidence on a relationship between corticosteroids and BML volume.

EU CLINICAL TRIALS REGISTER: EudraCT number: 2012-002607-18.

BACKGROUND: The foreign-born population make up an increasing and large proportion of tuberculosis (TB) cases in European Union/European Economic Area (EU/EEA) low-incidence countries and challenge TB elimination efforts. Methods: We conducted a systematic review to determine effectiveness (yield and performance of chest radiography (CXR) to detect active TB, treatment outcomes and acceptance of screening) and a second systematic review on cost-effectiveness of screening for active TB among migrants living in the EU/EEA. Results: We identified six systematic reviews, one report and three individual studies that addressed our aims. CXR was highly sensitive (98%) but only moderately specific (75%). The yield of detecting active TB with CXR screening among migrants was 350 per 100,000 population overall but ranged widely by host country (110-2,340), migrant type (170-1,192), TB incidence in source country (19-336) and screening setting (220-1,720). The CXR yield was lower (19.6 vs 336/100,000) and the numbers needed to screen were higher (5,076 vs 298) among migrants from source countries with lower TB incidence (≤ 50 compared with ≥ 350/100,000). Cost-effectiveness was highest among migrants originating from high (> 120/100,000) TB incidence countries. The foreign-born had similar or better TB treatment outcomes than those born in the EU/EEA. Acceptance of CXR screening was high (85%) among migrants. Discussion: Screening programmes for active TB are most efficient when targeting migrants from higher TB incidence countries. The limited number of studies identified and the heterogeneous evidence highlight the need for further data to inform screening programmes for migrants in the EU/EEA.