Purpose Unrecognized contraindications pose risks for adverse drug reactions, hospitalizations or death. Clinical decision support systems (CDSS) aim to mitigate medication-related harm, particularly originating from contraindications. However, many CDSS provide limited benefit, as they focus largely on singular risk situations such as drug-drug interactions and often generate alerts of limited clinical relevance. Comprehensiv...

Authentication of dairy product composition is vital for consumer protection and food safety. This study validated 4 real-time PCR methods targeting mitochondrial DNA from cattle, sheep, goat, and total mammals in a collaborative ring trial. Twelve well-characterised dairy samples – including milk, yoghurt, Picodon-type cheese, and Feta-type cheese ‒ were produced from sheep and goat milk with 1–33.3% cow milk admixture for us...

Objective The effect marker club cell protein (CC16) is secreted by the epithelium of the small respiratory tract into its lumen and passes into the blood. Increased amounts of CC16 in serum are observed during acute epithelial lung injury due to air pollutants. CC16 in serum was determined as part of this cross-sectional study in underground potash miners on acute and chronic health effects from exposures to diesel exhaust an...

Purpose Occupational exposure limits (OEL) for nitrogen oxides (NO, NO 2 ) and diesel exhaust (EC-DPM) were reassessed by the German authorities in 2016/2017. We performed a clinical cross-sectional study among salt and potash underground workers exposed to these substances at relatively high levels to examine possible indicators of acute effects on workers’ health. Methods We measured post- versus pre-shift differences in car...

In this article, we present a multiplex real-time PCR method for a simultaneous, sensitive and specific detection and semi-quantitative estimation of the allergenic species peanut, hazelnut, walnut and cashew in food. Due to the use of multicopy target sequences, a very sensitive detection of the allergenic ingredients was possible. The method was validated in-house as well as by a collaborative trial with 12 laboratories. Wit...

Renal inflammation, induced by autoantigen recognition or toxic drugs, leads to renal tissue injury and decline in kidney function. Recent studies have demonstrated the crucial role for regulatory T cells in suppressing pathogenic adaptive but also innate immune responses in the inflamed kidney. However, there is also evidence for other immune cell populations with immunosuppressive function in renal inflammation. This review...