Angèle Gayet-Ageron

• MD, MPH, PhD
• Professor (Assistant) at University of Geneva

Diversity in the research workforce is essential for addressing complex problems. Female investigators, along with individuals from diverse backgrounds and identities, generate novel, impactful, and innovative research, whereas biases may affect their chances of publication. In this article, we present ad hoc strategies for classifying biomedical m...

Background Conducting clinical trials is resource demanding. Mirroring challenges experienced elsewhere, clinical trials conducted in Switzerland often face overoptimistic budget estimations and insufficient funding, leading to trial discontinuation and research waste. As a first step to address this problem, we investigated the current approaches...

Background Patients admitted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) can experience significant fluctuations in blood glucose levels, even if they do not have a history of diabetes. Such variations may arise from multiple causes and are part of the adaptative stress-response to critical illness. To support their nutritional needs, these patients might als...

Objectives To assess whether the gender (primary) and geographical affiliation (post-hoc) of the first and/or last authors are associated with publication decisions after peer review. Design Case-control study. Setting Biomedical journals. Participants Original peer-reviewed manuscripts submitted between 1 January 2012 and 31 December 2019. Mai...

Due to a higher risk of maternal complications during pregnancy, as well as pregnancy complications such as stillbirth, SARS-CoV-2 contamination during pregnancy is a putative stress factor that could increase the risk of perinatal maternal mental health issues. We included women older than 18 years, who delivered a living baby at the Geneva Univer...

Objectives: To assess whether the gender (primary) and geographical affiliation (post hoc) of the first and/or last authors of manuscripts is associated with publication decisions after controlling for known confounders. Design: Case-control (1:1) study. Setting: Two large general medical journals and 20 specialist journals. Participants: Original...

Background and objectives The diagnosis of neurosyphilis (NS) lacks a true ‘gold standard’, making the diagnosis challenging while consequences of a misdiagnosis are potentially severe. The aim of this study was to evaluate the diagnostic performance of measuring an antibody index (AI) for the intrathecal synthesis of specific anti- Treponema palli...

Objective . This study investigated the associations between the number of authors and collective self-citations versus citations by others. Study design and setting . We analyzed 88,594 health science articles published in 2015 and citations they received until 2020. The main variables were the number of authors, the number of citations by co-aut...

Importance: Many randomized clinical trials yield statistically nonsignificant results. Such results are difficult to interpret within the dominant statistical framework. Objective: To estimate the strength of evidence in favor of the null hypothesis of no effect vs the prespecified effectiveness hypothesis among nonsignificant primary outcome r...

Objectives To describe gender and geographical inequalities in invitations to review and the response to these invitations and to assess whether inequalities increased during the covid-19 pandemic. Design Retrospective cohort study. Setting 19 specialist medical journals and two large general medical journals from BMJ Publishing Group. Populatio...

Abstract Two successive COVID-19 flares occurred in Switzerland in spring and autumn 2020. During these periods, therapeutic strategies have been constantly adapted based on emerging evidence. We aimed to describe these adaptations and evaluate their association with patient outcomes in a cohort of COVID-19 patients admitted to the hospital. Consec...

Objective: The caesarean section (CS) rate in Switzerland is currently 32 %, well above the WHO recommended rate of 15 %. The study aims were three-fold: to explore the perception of this high rate among Swiss obstetrics-gynecology (Ob-Gyn) professionals; to assess the factors associated with a perception of a too high national CS rate; and to des...

Background: Birth-related post-traumatic stress disorder occurs in 4.7% of mothers. No previous study focusing precisely on the stress factors related to the COVID-19 pandemic regarding this important public mental health issue has been conducted. However, the stress load brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic could have influenced this risk. Met...

Objective To investigate staff attitudes toward assisted suicide in the hospital setting in Switzerland. Design Cross-sectional study. Setting Two University Hospitals in French speaking regions of Switzerland. Participants 13’834 health care professionals, including all personnel caring for patients, were invited to participate. Main outcome m...

Background: High-energy pelvic ring injuries (PRI) represent a heavy burden for institutions treating severely injured patients. Epidemiological data knowledge may help to provide them appropriate management. Only two epidemiologic studies about high-energy PRI were published during last decade. This study aimed to determine the gender-specific an...

Background Persistent pain and disability following rib fractures result in a large psycho-socio-economic impact for health-care system. Benefits of rib osteosynthesis are well documented in patients with flail chest that necessitates invasive ventilation. In patients with uncomplicated and simple rib fractures, indication for rib osteosynthesis is...

Background The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic led to a steep increase in hospital and intensive care unit (ICU) admissions for acute respiratory failure worldwide. Early identification of patients at risk of clinical deterioration is crucial in terms of appropriate care delivery and resource allocation. We aimed to evaluate and compare the prognostic performa...

Research on research (RoR), or meta-research, is the study of research itself. In 2019, a group of meta-researchers and members of the SCTO’s Clinical Trial Unit Network interested in meta-research founded the Swiss clinical Trials Empirical Assessment & Methods (STEAM) working group to promote RoR in Switzerland. Specifically, STEAM aims to contin...

Aims of the study: Although the 5-year survival for pediatric cancer in Switzerland today is over 85%, two thirds of the survivors will develop chronic health conditions due to the disease or to the toxicity of treatments. In this context, a long-term personalized follow-up program (LTFU program), was set up at the University Hospitals of Geneva (...

In the context of a lack of a gold standard for the diagnosis of neurosyphilis due to either nonspecific or nonsensitive tests, we present in this article a new promising tool highly specific for NS diagnosis. This new test involves measuring an intrathecal synthesis index of specific anti- Treponema IgG by ELISA.

Objectives The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence and forms of gender discrimination and sexual harassment experienced by medical students and physicians in French-speaking part of Switzerland. Design and setting We conducted an online survey using a questionnaire of 9 multiple-choice and 2 open questions between 24 January 2019 and...

Little is known on the long-lasting humoral response and the T cell activation induced by SARS-COV2 mRNA vaccines in patients with cancer. The study assessed the efficacy of the SARS-COV2 mRNA vaccines through measuring the seroconversion rate at pre-specified time points and the effect on the T cell immunity in patients with cancers. The study inc...

Background and Objectives: Frostbite is a freezing injury that can lead to amputation. Current treatments include tissue rewarming followed by thrombolytic or vasodilators. Hyperbaric oxygen (HBO) therapy might decrease the rate of amputation by increasing cellular oxygen availability to the damaged tissues. The SOS-Frostbite study was implemented...

Objective: To describe prominent authorship positions held by women and the overall percentage of women co-authoring manuscripts submitted during the covid-19 pandemic compared with the previous two years. Design: Cross sectional study. Setting: Nine specialist and two large general medical journals. Population: Authors of research manuscrip...

Background The 2017 Alzheimer’s disease (AD) Strategic Biomarker Roadmap (SBR) structured the validation of AD diagnostic biomarkers into 5 phases, systematically assessing analytical validity (Phases 1–2), clinical validity (Phases 3–4), and clinical utility (Phase 5) through primary and secondary Aims. This framework allows to map knowledge gaps...

Background Antigen-detecting rapid diagnostic tests (Ag-RDTs) for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 offer new opportunities for testing in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Nasopharyngeal swabs (NPS) are the reference sample type, but oropharyngeal swabs (OPS) may be a more acceptable sample type in some patients. Methods We conducted a prospective...

Abstract Background The real prevalence and incidence of women living with or at risk of female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) is unknown in Switzerland and many parts of Europe, as there are no representative surveys similar to DHS or MICS for European countries. Indirect estimates are commonly used to estimate the number of women with FGM/C i...

Objectives To develop and validate a rule-out prediction model for the risk of hospitalisation among patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection in the ambulatory setting to derive a simple score to determine outpatient follow-up. Design Prospective cohort study. Setting Swiss university hospital. Participants 1459 individuals with a positive result for...

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has revealed inequalities between men and women and has deepened some existing disparities. While in Switzerland, more women than men have been infected, men have been at greater risk of developing complications and dying. A weaker immune response and more co-morbidities help to explain this poorer prognosis. Socially and ec...

Extended community testing constitutes one of the main strategic pillars in controlling the COVID-19 pandemic. Reverse transcription PCR (RT-PCR) targeting the SARS-CoV-2 genome on nasopharyngeal swab samples is currently the reference test. While displaying excellent analytical sensitivity and specificity, this test is costly, often requires a sub...

Objectives Determine the diagnostic accuracy of two antigen-detecting rapid diagnostic tests (Ag-RDT) for SARS-CoV-2 at the point of care and define individuals’ characteristics providing best performance. Methods We performed a prospective, single-center, point of care validation of two Ag-RDT in comparison to RT-PCR on nasopharyngeal swabs. Res...

Background Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C) concerns over 200 million women and girls worldwide and is associated with obstetric trauma and long-term urogynaecological and psychosexual complications that are often under-investigated and undertreated. The aim of this study was to assess the pelvic floor distress and the impact of pelvic flo...

Importance: Hand hygiene (HH) is essential to prevent hospital-acquired infections. Objective: To determine whether providing real-time feedback on a simplified HH action improves compliance with the World Health Organization's "5 Moments" and the quality of the HH action. Design, setting, and participants: This open-label, cluster randomized,...

Background Antigen-detecting rapid diagnostic tests (Ag-RDTs) for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 offer new opportunities for testing in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Nasopharyngeal swabs (NPS) are the reference sample type, but oropharyngeal swabs (OPS) may be a more acceptable sample type in some patients. Methods We conducted a prospective s...

AIMS OF THE STUDY Hydroxychloroquine and lopinavir/ritonavir have been used as experimental therapies to treat COVID-19 during the first wave of the pandemic. Randomised controlled trials have recently shown that there are no meaningful benefits of these two therapies in hospitalised patients. Uncertainty remains regarding the potential harmful im...

Background: To assess the number of inpatient women and girls in Swiss university hospitals from countries with high female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) prevalence, and of inpatients with a coded diagnosis of FGM/C. Methods: Exploratory descriptive study in Switzerland to assess the number of women and girls admitted to Swiss university hospi...

Background The 2017 Alzheimer’s disease (AD) Biomarker Roadmap structures the validation of AD diagnostic biomarkers into a systematic sequence of 5 Phases, each encompassing primary and secondary aims assessing analytical validity (Phases 1‐2), clinical validity (Phases 3‐4) and clinical utility (Phase 5). This framework allows us to assess curren...

Background Antigen-detecting rapid diagnostic tests for SARS-CoV-2 offer new opportunities for the quick and laboratory-independent identification of infected individuals for control of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Methods We performed a prospective, single-center, point of care validation of two antigen-detecting rapid diagnostic tests (Ag-RDT) in co...

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via the original article.

Background: Classic epidemic curves - counts of daily events or cumulative events over time -emphasise temporal changes in the growth or size of epidemic outbreaks. Like any graph, these curves have limitations: they are impractical for comparisons of large and small outbreaks or of asynchronous outbreaks, and they do not display the relative grow...

Background: The ongoing coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic forced health jurisdictions worldwide to significantly restructure and reorganize their medical activities. In response to the rapidly evolving body of evidence, a solid communication strategy is needed to increase the reach of and adherence to locally drafted and validated guidance to...

Objectives: In many countries, large numbers of critically ill patients with coronavirus disease 2019 are admitted to the ICUs within a short period of time, overwhelming usual care capacities. Preparedness and reorganization ahead of the wave to increase ICU surge capacity may be associated with favorable outcome. The purpose of this study was to...

Background:The regulation of melanoma by noradrenergic signaling has gain attentionsince pre-clinical and clinical studies suggested a benefit of using beta-blockers to control diseaseprogression. We need to confirm that human melanoma recapitulates the mechanisms described frompre-clinical models.Methods:The sources and targets of norepinephrine i...

Objectives To estimate the proportion of statistically significant survival improvements reported in randomized trials of cancer treatments that are also compatible with a clinically negligible benefit. Study design and setting Cross-sectional study of reports of randomized clinical trials of cancer treatments that reported a statistically signifi...

Importance Antibiotic overuse drives antibiotic resistance. Gram-negative bacteremia is a common infection that results in substantial antibiotic use. Objective To compare the clinical effectiveness of C-reactive protein (CRP)–guided, 7-day, and 14-day antibiotic durations 30, 60, and 90 days after treatment initiation. Design, Setting, and Parti...

BACKGROUND Current COVID-19 related sanitary crisis has led many hospitals worldwide to rapidly restructure their organization. In response to the rapidly evolving body of evidence, a solid strategy is needed to disseminate local and validated guidance to help implementing recommendations for COVID-19 management. OBJECTIVE We describe the use of a...

Background: The regulation of melanoma by noradrenergic signaling has gain attention since pre-clinical and clinical studies suggested a benefit of using beta-blockers to control disease progression. We need to confirm that human melanoma recapitulates the mechanisms described from pre-clinical models. Methods: The sources and targets of norepineph...

Background: High patient participation in clinical research reduces selection bias and ensures the generalizability of study findings. We explored study-related factors that may influence patients' willingness to participate in research. Methods: We submitted by mail two vignettes that described clinical research studies - a drug trial and a dia...

Background Early administration of the antifibrinolytic drug tranexamic acid reduces death from bleeding in trauma and postpartum haemorrhage. We examined how the effectiveness and safety of antifibrinolytic drugs varies by the baseline risk of death as a result of bleeding. Methods We performed an individual patient-level data meta-analysis of ra...

Background: Noma can be a lethal disease and causes disfigurement in young children in low-resource countries, particularly in Africa. In these settings, 80% of the population mainly consult traditional healers for healthcare problems. Our study aimed to describe the sociodemographic characteristics of traditional healers and to assess their knowle...

Objectives Hepatitis C virus (HCV) causes both acute and chronic infection, which can potentially develop into cirrhosis and liver cancer. Healthcare systems are struggling to finance costly direct-acting antiviral agents through public funding for uninsured patients, despite the unprecedented high cure rates of these agents. Vulnerable populations...

Aim: To assess periodontal and dental conditions in individuals in maintenance care after periodontal therapy in private practice, and identify risk factors for recurrence of disease and tooth loss. Materials and methods: 100 patients attending a routine recall visit were included. All had been treated for periodontal disease and were in mainten...

Objective To develop and validate a prognostic model and a simple model to predict death due to bleeding in trauma patients. Design Cross-sectional study with multivariable logistic regression using data from two large trauma cohorts. Setting 274 hospitals from 40 countries in the Clinical Randomisation of Anti-fibrinolytic in Significant Haemorr...

Objectives The proportion of women engaged in clinical research has increased over time. However, it is unclear if women and men contribute to the same extent during the conduct of research and, if so, if they are equally rewarded by a strategic first or last author position. We aim to describe the prevalence of women authors of original articles p...

Objectives To evaluate the number of late preterm (LPT) births (between 34 0/7 and 36 6/7 weeks) that could have been prevented if expectant management of preterm premature rupture of membranes (PPROM) had been applied according to new recommendations. Methods A retrospective cohort study included all births at one Swiss center between January 1,...

Syphilis is an important public health problem and an increasing incidence has been noted in recent years. Characterization of strain diversity through molecular data plays a critical role in the epidemiological understanding of this re-emergence. We here propose a new high-resolution multilocus sequence typing (MLST) scheme for Treponema pallidum...

Primers used for the nested-PCR amplification for the candidate loci and the 23S rRNA gene. (DOCX)

Fifteen different subtypes found among 89 typeable Swiss and French clinical samples by ECDCT. (DOCX)

Genes with the highest SNV density among samples listed in S1 Table (n = 30). Intergenic regions, paralogous genes (including tpr genes), genes with repetitions and sites with ambiguous data were not included in this analysis. Only genes containing at least four variable sites resulting in the SNV density > 0.001 are shown. Candidate loci are shown...

Nineteen different genotypes found among 99 typeable Swiss and French clinical samples by Sequencing-based molecular typing (SBMT). (DOCX)

Draft and complete genome sequences (n = 30) used for identification of candidate loci. (DOCX)

GenBank accession numbers corresponding to the particular allelic variants. (DOCX)

Phylogeny of MLST allelic profiles obtained from complete genomes representing different Treponema pallidum subspecies. Maximum likelihood tree produced in MEGA 6 for concatenated sequences of typing loci (TP_0136, TP_0548, TP_0705) in available complete genomes of reference strains representing different Treponema pallidum subspecies (TPA–Treponem...

Introduction Clinical research depends on the patients’ willingness to participate. Globally, general public and outpatients express positive attitudes regarding their intent to participate in medical research studies. In reality, a quarter of clinical trials fail to recruit the anticipated number of patients thus exposing the trial to the risk of...

Introduction The proportion of women engaged in clinical research has increased over time, but it is unclear if women and men contribute to the same extent during the conduct of research. Our objective were: –to describe the prevalence of women authors of original articles published in 2000 and 2015; –to compare the research contributions and autho...

The World Health Organization (WHO) has conducted two global surveys in 2011 and 2015 using the Hand Hygiene Self-Assessment Framework (HHSAF). In 2011, 2119 health facilities from 69 countries participated; in 2015, 807 from 91 countries. A total of 86 facilities submitted results for both surveys; their overall score increased significantly (p<0....

Owing to an error in typesetting, Table 2 was not structured correctly.

Alternative multivariable model for the development of an eGFR <60 ml/min per 1.73 m2. AIDS, acquired immunodeficiency syndrome; ART, antiretroviral therapy; CI, confidence interval; eGFR, estimated glomerular filtration rate; HBV, hepatitis B virus; HCV, hepatitis C virus; HR, hazard ratio; LA, lipoatrophy; LD, lipodystrophy; LH, lipohypertrophy;...

Distribution of GFR stage at baseline and the last follow-up visit based on the presence of LD. 1Comparison of GFR category proportions between patients with and without LD at the last follow-up visit (chi-squared test 20.1, P < 0.001). 2Comparison of GFR category proportions among LD phenotypes at the last follow-up visit (chi-squared test 49.8, P...

Multivariable models for the development of albuminuria. The model was also adjusted for the center (global P value <0.001). AIDS, acquired immunodeficiency syndrome; ART, antiretroviral therapy; CI, confidence interval; eGFR, estimated glomerular filtration rate; HBV, hepatitis B virus; HCV, hepatitis C virus; HR, hazard ratio; LA, lipoatrophy; LD...

Members of the Swiss HIV Cohort Study group.

Introduction Antiretroviral therapy has improved the life expectancy of patients living with HIV. However, lipodystrophy syndrome (LD) remains prevalent, affecting mostly patients treated with first-generation antiretroviral drugs. This syndrome is characterized by changes in body fat distribution with or without associated metabolic changes. Here,...

PurposeThe patency of arterial catheters is essential for reliable invasive blood pressure monitoring. We sought to determine whether radial catheter failures were associated with intravascular thrombosis in critically ill adult patients. Methods This unmatched case-control study was conducted within a prospective cohort of patients admitted to an...

Background: Surgical site infections (SSIs) are the most frequent health-care-associated infections in developing countries. Specific prevention measures are highly effective, but are often poorly implemented. We aimed to establish the effect of a multimodal intervention on SSIs in Africa. Methods: We did a before-after cohort study, between Jul...

Background: Postpartum haemorrhage (PPH) - heaving bleeding within the first 24 hours after giving birth - is one of the main causes of death of women after childbirth. Antifibrinolytics, primarily tranexamic acid (TXA), have been shown to reduce bleeding in surgery and safely reduces mortality in trauma patients with bleeding without increasing t...

Background: Late preterm (LPT) newborns, defined as those born between 34 0/7 and 36 6/7 gestational weeks, have higher short- and long-term morbidity and mortality than term infants (≥37 weeks). A categorization to justify a non-spontaneous LPT delivery has been proposed to distinguish evidence-based from non-evidence-based criteria. This study a...

Objectives: No general emergency department triage scale has been evaluated for prehospital triage. The objective of this study was to evaluate the reliability and the performance of the Swiss Emergency Triage Scale (SETS) used by paramedics to determine the emergency level and orientation of simulated patients. Patients and methods: In a prospe...

Background: Antifibrinolytics reduce death from bleeding in trauma and post-partum haemorrhage. We examined the effect of treatment delay on the effectiveness of antifibrinolytics. Methods: We did an individual patient-level data meta-analysis of randomised trials done with more than 1000 patients that assessed antifibrinolytics in acute severe...

Background Previous studies have suggested that acute necrotising gingivitis precedes noma disease and that noma clusters in some villages in certain regions of low- and middle-income countries. We sought to assess the prevalence of gingivitis with bleeding in young children from villages with or without a history of noma and to analyse epidemiolog...

Background: Rilpivirine is safe and effective in HIV-naïve patients with low baseline HIV-RNA or in switch strategy. It offers the advantages of few drug-drug interactions and a favourable toxicity profile. We aimed to determine the reasons for prescribing the rilpivirine (RPV)/tenofovir disoproxil (TDF)/emtricitabine (FTC) co-formulation within t...

Introduction Antibiotic overuse drives antibiotic resistance. The optimal duration of antibiotic therapy for Gram-negative bacteraemia (GNB), a common community and hospital-associated infection, remains unknown and unstudied via randomised controlled trials (RCTs). Methods and analysis This investigator-initiated, multicentre, non-inferiority, in...