Tartu University Hospital

About: Tartu University Hospital is a healthcare organization based out in Tartu, Estonia. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Medicine. The organization has 687 authors who have published 1240 publications receiving 35294 citations.

Autoantibodies against type I IFNs in patients with life-threatening COVID-19.

Abstract: Interindividual clinical variability in the course of SARS-CoV-2 infection is immense. We report that at least 101 of 987 patients with life-threatening COVID-19 pneumonia had neutralizing IgG auto-Abs against IFN-ω (13 patients), the 13 types of IFN-α (36), or both (52), at the onset of critical disease; a few also had auto-Abs against the other three type I IFNs. The auto-Abs neutralize the ability of the corresponding type I IFNs to block SARS-CoV-2 infection in vitro. These auto-Abs were not found in 663 individuals with asymptomatic or mild SARS-CoV-2 infection and were present in only 4 of 1,227 healthy individuals. Patients with auto-Abs were aged 25 to 87 years and 95 were men. A B cell auto-immune phenocopy of inborn errors of type I IFN immunity underlies life-threatening COVID-19 pneumonia in at least 2.6% of women and 12.5% of men.

A century of trends in adult human height

Abstract: Being taller is associated with enhanced longevity, and higher education and earnings. We reanalysed 1472 population-based studies, with measurement of height on more than 18.6 million participants to estimate mean height for people born between 1896 and 1996 in 200 countries. The largest gain in adult height over the past century has occurred in South Korean women and Iranian men, who became 20.2 cm (95% credible interval 17.5–22.7) and 16.5 cm (13.3–19.7) taller, respectively. In contrast, there was little change in adult height in some sub-Saharan African countries and in South Asia over the century of analysis. The tallest people over these 100 years are men born in the Netherlands in the last quarter of 20th century, whose average heights surpassed 182.5 cm, and the shortest were women born in Guatemala in 1896 (140.3 cm; 135.8–144.8). The height differential between the tallest and shortest populations was 19-20 cm a century ago, and has remained the same for women and increased for men a century later despite substantial changes in the ranking of countries.

Sofosbuvir and Ribavirin in HCV Genotypes 2 and 3

Abstract: Background In clinical trials, treatment with a combination of the nucleotide polymerase inhibitor sofosbuvir and the antiviral drug ribavirin was associated with high response rates among patients with hepatitis C virus (HCV) genotype 2 infection, with lower response rates among patients with HCV genotype 3 infection. Methods We conducted a study involving patients with HCV genotype 2 or 3 infection, some of whom had undergone previous treatment with an interferon-based regimen. We randomly assigned 91 patients with HCV genotype 2 infection and 328 with HCV genotype 3 infection, in a 4:1 ratio, to receive sofosbuvir–ribavirin or placebo for 12 weeks. On the basis of emerging data from phase 3 trials indicating that patients with HCV genotype 3 infection had higher response rates when they were treated for 16 weeks, as compared with 12 weeks, the study was unblinded, treatment for all patients with genotype 3 infection was extended to 24 weeks, the placebo group was terminated, and the goals of the study ...