Having defined the shape of the estimated weight function in figure 1, we should consider possible explanations for the pattern of the relationship between infection risk and current and past doses, be they causal or otherwise.
These discordant findings may be due to differences in measuring drug use, such as the type of drugs used, route of administration, dose and frequency, current or past use, and polydrug use [ 4, 6].
However, no study has been performed that controls for the distribution of radiation dose and the aggressiveness of past chemotherapy, which could be responsible for the observed temporal variation of the risk.
We ranked RA patients using propensity scores [ 30] for current RA disease activity and severity using a model that included the total Sharp van der Heijde radiographic score, the number of swollen and tender joints, the health assessment questionnaire, minutes of morning stiffness, the cumulative prednisone dose, and the number of past DMARDs prescribed.
The left-most column describes selected, clinically plausible patterns of current and past glucocorticoid doses.
All subjects were given standardized questionnaires to obtain demographics (age, sex, race/ethnicity, and years in school), medical history, medication use, current and past smoking status, insulin dose, and family medical history.
A retrospective cohort study 40 of HIV+ subjects found that compared to never smokers, current and past smokers with increased dose and or duration of smoking were at greater risk of all-cause mortality.
Patient- and provider-reported data collected at each Corrona registry visit include RA disease severity and activity; present and past RA treatments with doses, comorbidities, adverse events, and selected laboratory and imaging results; sociodemographic information; and a range of patient-reported outcomes.
These Shanghailanders are themselves subjects of photographs by Lu Yuanmin: sepia-toned portraits of middle-class residents who have made their apartments into sealed environments to which manageable doses of past and present are admitted.
