Prospective cohort study | EPFL Graph Search

A prospective cohort study is a longitudinal cohort study that follows over time a group of similar individuals (cohorts) who differ with respect to certain factors under study, to determine how these factors affect rates of a certain outcome. For example, one might follow a cohort of middle-aged truck drivers who vary in terms of smoking habits, to test the hypothesis that the 20-year incidence rate of lung cancer will be highest among heavy smokers, followed by moderate smokers, and then nonsmokers. The prospective study is important for research on the etiology of diseases and disorders. The distinguishing feature of a prospective cohort study is that at the time that the investigators begin enrolling subjects and collecting baseline exposure information, none of the subjects have developed any of the outcomes of interest. After baseline information is collected, subjects in a prospective cohort study are then followed "longitudinally," i.e. over a period of time, usually for years, to determine if and when they become diseased and whether their exposure status changes outcomes. In this way, investigators can eventually use the data to answer many questions about the associations between "risk factors" and disease outcomes. For example, one could identify smokers and non-smokers at baseline and compare their subsequent incidence of developing heart disease. Alternatively, one could group subjects based on their body mass index (BMI) and compare their risk of developing heart disease or cancer. Prospective cohort studies are typically ranked higher in the hierarchy of evidence than retrospective cohort studies and can be more expensive than a case–control study. One of the advantages of prospective cohort studies is they can help determine risk factors for being infected with a new disease because they are a longitudinal observation over time, and the collection of results is at regular time intervals, so recall error is minimized.

The hindbrain and cortico-reticular pathway in adolescent idiopathic scoliosis

Bénédicte Marie Maréchal

AIM: To characterise the corticoreticular pathway (CRP) in a case -control cohort of adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS) patients using high -resolution slice -accelerated readoutsegmented echo -planar diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) to enhance the discri ...

W B Saunders Co Ltd2024

Surgical approaches to the capitellum: a comparative anatomic study

Alexandre Terrier, Patrick Goetti, Frédéric Vauclair

Background: Osteochondritis dissecans (OCD) of the humeral capitellum is an important cause of elbow disability in young athletes. Large and unstable lesions sometimes require joint reconstruction with osteochondral autograft. Several approaches have been ...

Mosby-Elsevier2024