First results from the RATIO follow up study

~ BS

Another article got published today in the JAMA Int Med, this time the results from the first analyses of the RATIO follow-up data. For these data, we linked the RATIO study to the dutch national bureau of statistics (CBS), to obtain 20 years of follow-up on cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. We first submitted a full paper, but later we downsized to a research letter with only 600 words. This means that only the main message (i.e. cardiovascular recurrence is high, persistent over time and disease specific) is left.

It is a “Leiden publication”, where I worked together with AM and FP from Milano. Most of the credit of course goes to AM, who is the first author of this piece. The cool thing about this publication is that the team worked very hard on it for a long time (data linking and analyses where not an easy thing to do, as well as changing from 3000 words to 600 in just a week or so), and that in the end all the hard work paid off. But next to the hard work, it is also nice to see results being picked up by the media. The JAMA Int Med put out an international press release, whereas the LUMC is going to publish its own Dutch version. In the days before the ‘online first’ publication I already answered some emails from writers for medical news sites, some with up to 5.000K views per month. I do not know if you think that’s a lot, but for me it is. The websites that cover this story can be found here (dagensmedisin.se, healio.com, medicaldaily.com, medpagetoday.com, medonline.at, drugs.com / healthday.com / webmd.com /  usnews.com / doctorslounge.com, medicalxpress.com, medicalnewstoday.com, eurekalert.org and perhaps more to come. Why not just take a look at the Altmetric of this article).

– edit 26.11.2015: a dutch press release from the LUMC can be found here) – edit: oops, medpagetoday.com has a published great report/interview, but used a wrong title…”Repeat MI and Stroke Risks Defined in ‘Younger’ Women on Oral Contraceptives”. not all women were on OC of course.

Of course, @JAMAInternalMed tweeted about it

 

The article, with the full title “Recurrence and Mortality in Young Women With Myocardial Infarction or Ischemic Stroke: Long-term Follow-up of the Risk of Arterial Thrombosis in Relation to Oral Contraceptives (RATIO) Study“ can be found via JAMA Internal Medicine or via my personal Mendeley page.

As I reported earlier, this project is supported by a grant from the LUF den Dulk-Moermans foundation, for which we are grateful.