Maurice Zeegers

Maastricht University | UM · Department of Epidemiology

Objectives: The molecular landscape of non-muscle-invasive (NMIBC) and muscle-invasive (MIBC) bladder cancer based on molecular characteristics is essential but poorly understood. In this pilot study we aimed to identify a multi-omics signature that can distinguish MIBC from NMIBC. Such a signature can assist in finding potential mechanistic biomar...

BACKGROUND While patient-reported instruments are less costly and invasive than the administration of physical performance tests, there is no gold standard for a patient-reported outcome measure (PROM) of functional mobility in people with Parkinson’s disease (PwP). METHODS We designed the PROM functional mobility composite score (FMCS) and investi...

Background Three-quarters of bladder cancer patients present with early-stage disease (non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer, NMIBC, UICC TNM stages Ta, T1 and Tis); however, most next-generation sequencing studies to date have concentrated on later-stage disease (muscle-invasive BC, stages T2+). We used exome and transcriptome sequencing to comprehen...

Background To improve colorectal cancer (CRC) survival and lower incidence rates, colonoscopy and/or fecal immunochemical tests (FIT) screening is widely implemented. Although candidate DNA methylation biomarkers have been published to improve or complement FIT, clinical translation is limited. Here, we describe technical and methodological problem...

Objective: This study examines the association between 8-h time weighted N, N-dimethylacetamide (DMAc) air exposure and potential hepatocellular injury in a retrospective study among fibre-production workers in four European factories. Methods and results: Twenty-nine (1.5%) of 1844 alanine aminotransferase (ALT) observations had liver values tw...

Introduction Most findings of forensic pathology examinations are presented as written reports. There are currently no internationally accepted recommendations for writing forensic pathology reports. Existing recommendations are also varied and reflect the differences in the scope and role of forensic medical services and local settings in which th...

Investigating causation is a primary goal in forensic/legal medicine, aiming to establish the connection between an unlawful/negligent act and an adverse outcome. In malpractice litigation involving a healthcare-associated infection due to a failure of infection prevention and control practices, the medicolegal causal analysis needs to quantify the...

A crucial role in the external postmortem examination system of the Netherlands is that of the attending physicians, who are either general practitioners or physicians in hospitals. They perform 85% of all external postmortem examinations and must immediately report to forensic physicians all unnatural deaths and deaths that they are not convinced...

Injury claims associated with minimal damage rear impact traffic crashes are often defended using a “biomechanical approach,” in which the occupant forces of the crash are compared to the forces of activities of daily living (ADLs), resulting in the conclusion that the risk of injury from the crash is the same as for ADLs. The purpose of the presen...

Background Recovery trajectories differ between individual patients and it is hypothesizes that they can be used to predict if an individual patient is likely to recover earlier or later. Primary aim of this study was to determine if it is possible to identify recovery trajectories for physical functioning and pain during the first six weeks in pat...

Objectives To explore the current evidence on interventions to influence antibiotic prescribing behavior of health professionals in outpatient settings in low‐income and lower‐middle‐income countries, an underrepresented area in the literature. Methods The systematic review protocol for this study was registered in PROSPERO (CRD42020170504). We se...

PURPOSE: The purpose the present study is to perform a comprehensive scientific literature review and pooled data risk factor analysis of Excited Delirium Syndrome (ExDS) and Agitated Delirium (AgDS). METHODS: All cases of ExDS or AgDS described individually in the literature published before April 23, 2020 were used to create a database of cases,...

Citing of previous publications is an important factor in knowledge development. Because of the great amount of publications available, only a selection of studies gets cited, for varying reasons. If the selection of citations is associated with study outcome this is called citation bias. We will study determinants of citation in a broader sense, i...

Objective When the probability of being cited depends on the outcome of that study, this is called citation bias. Aim of this study is to assess the determinants of citation and how these compare across six different biomedical research fields. Study design Citation network analyses were performed for six biomedical research questions. After ident...

Introduction Observational studies have shown a relationship between omega-3 long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (n-3 LCPUFA) and depression in adolescents. However, n-3 LCPUFA supplementation studies investigating the potential improvement in depressive feelings in adolescents from the general population are missing. Methods A one-year double-...

Background: Recovery trajectories differ between individual patients and it is hypothesizes that they can be used to predict if an individual patient is likely to recover earlier or later. Primary aim of this study was to determine if it is possible to identify recovery trajectories for physical functioning and pain during the first six weeks in pa...

A fundamental purpose of forensic medical, or medicolegal, analysis is to provide legal factfinders with an opinion regarding the causal relationship between an alleged unlawful or negligent action and a medically observed adverse outcome, which is needed to establish legal liability. At present, there are no universally established standards for m...

Objective An increasing number of diseases is linked to deterioration of quality of life (QoL). Part of this association can be explained by socio-economic factors, which are most commonly accounted for. Our aim was to explore the potential contribution of other factors related to clinical burden, social interaction and functioning. Methods A cros...

Objectives: Epidemiological research on the association between diesel exhaust exposure and lung cancer risk has some methodological challenges that give rise to different conclusions and intense debates. This raises the question about the role of selective citation and of citation bias in particular. Our aim was to investigate the occurrence and...

Objectives Maternal pre-pregnancy weight is known to affect foetal development. However, it has not yet been clarified if gestational weight gain is associated with childhood behavioural development.Methods We performed a pooled analysis of two prospective birth cohorts to investigate the association between gestational weight gain and childhood pr...

An increasing number of people living with multimorbidity may receive suboptimal care since health systems are not well prepared to respond to their complex needs. Identifying which conditions most commonly group together could support better care for patients with multiple diseases. This is particularly critical for conditions that have the most d...

Objective The purpose of this study is to summarize the evidence for the association between exposure to a motor vehicle collision (MVC) and future low back pain (LBP). Literature survey Persistent low back pain (LBP) is a relatively common complaint after acute injury in a MVC, with a reported 1 year post-crash prevalence of at least 31 % of expo...

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3233/BLC-180172.].

Recent epidemiological studies have shown varying associations between coffee consumption and bladder cancer (BC). This research aims to elucidate the association between coffee consumption and BC risk by bringing together worldwide cohort studies on this topic. Coffee consumption in relation to BC risk was examined by pooling individual data from...

The primary aim of forensic medical analysis is to provide legal factfinders with evidence regarding the causal relationship between an alleged action and a harmful outcome. Despite existing guides and manuals, the approach to formulating opinions on medicolegal causal inference used by forensic medical practitioners, and how the strength of the op...

Background: Very few (<0.1%) of DNA methylation biomarkers are eventually translated into clinical practice, even though over 5,000 have been published over the last decades. In an attempt to create an overview of the current evidence on these markers, we performed two systematic reviews on diagnostic DNA methylation biomarkers in liquid biopsies,...

At present, the analysis of diet and bladder cancer (BC) is mostly based on the intake of individual foods. The examination of food combinations provides a scope to deal with the complexity and unpredictability of the diet and aims to overcome the limitations of the study of nutrients and foods in isolation. This article aims to demonstrate the usa...

While the association between fruit consumption and bladder cancer risk has been extensively reported, studies have had inadequate statistical power to investigate associations between types of fruit and bladder cancer risk satisfactorily. Fruit consumption in relation to bladder cancer risk was investigated by pooling individual data from 13 cohor...

The original version of this article unfortunately contained a mistake. Title was incorrect.

Purpose The role of diet in bladder carcinogenesis has yet to be established. To date most studies have investigated dietary components individually, rather than as dietary patterns, which may provide stronger evidence for any influence of diet on bladder carcinogenesis. The Mediterranean diet has been associated with many health benefits, but few...

BACKGROUND Approximately 90% of currently published clinical and public health research are in the form of observational studies. Having a detailed and registered study protocol prior to data collection is important in any empirical study. Without this, there is no reliable way to assess the occurrence of publication bias, outcome reporting bias an...

Background Approximately 90% of currently published clinical and public health research is in the form of observational studies. Having a detailed and registered study protocol prior to data collection is important in any empirical study. Without this, there is no reliable way to assess the occurrence of publication bias, outcome reporting bias, an...

Inconsistent associations between milk and other dairy product consumption and bladder cancer (BC) have been reported. We aimed to investigate possible associations with BC risk for total and individual dairy products by bringing together the world’s data on this topic. Thirteen cohort studies, included in the BLadder cancer Epidemiology and Nutrit...

Background Modern industry is developing and so is the consumption of N, N-dimethylformamide (DMF) and the occupational population exposed to DMF. However, chronic occupational and experimental exposure to DMF has been especially linked to liver and gastrointestinal disturbances. Aims This study aims to systematically review and evaluate with a me...

Introduction Many germline associations have been reported for urinary bladder cancer (UBC) outcomes and prognostic characteristics. It is unclear whether there are overlapping genetic patterns for various prognostic endpoints. We aimed to review contemporary literature on genetic associations with UBC prognostic outcomes and to identify potential...

BACKGROUND OBJECTIVE: Whole genome sequencing has identified recurrent non-coding mutations that may be important in carcinogenesis. We investigate the frequency of 5 such non-coding mutation hotspots in urothelial bladder cancers (UBCs) and assess their potential for UBC detection and prognostication. METHODS: DNA extracted from 302 UBCs was subje...

Background: Due to the high risk of recurrence of non-muscle invasive bladder cancer, all patients undergo regular cystoscopic surveillance for early detection. As cystoscopy is invasive, costly and increases the burden of the disease considerably, there is significant ongoing research and development into non-invasive urinary biomarker substitute...

Multimorbidity defined most commonly as co-existence of 2+ diseases is one of the major challenges of an ageing society. It is often accompanied with declining quality of life (QoL). The study aims to 1) assess the relationship between increasing number of diseases and QoL over time, 2) explore the differences between several European countries. Lo...

Introduction: Multiple studies have reported genetic associations with prognostic outcomes of urinary bladder cancer. However, the lack of replication of these associations prohibits establishing further evidence-based research directions. Moreover, there is a lack of independent bladder cancer patient samples that contain prognostic measures, maki...

Background Health-related quality of life (HRQoL) is a key outcome in cost-utility analyses, which are commonly used to inform healthcare decisions. Different instruments exist to evaluate HRQoL, however while some jurisdictions have a preferred system, no gold standard exists. Standard meta-analysis struggles with the variety of outcome measures,...

Objective: Between 10 and 20% of bladder cancer patients who are diagnosed with nonmuscle-invasive bladder cancer will progress to muscle-invasive disease. Risk of progression depends on several factors at diagnosis including age, tumour stage, grade, size and number, and the presence or absence of carcinoma in situ. Fluid intake may be related to...

Background Inconsistent results for coffee consumption and bladder cancer (BC) risk have been shown in epidemiological studies. This research aims to increase the understanding of the association between coffee consumption and BC risk by bringing together worldwide case–control studies on this topic. Methods Data were collected from 13 case–contro...

Background: Microscopic colitis (MC) is considered a multifactorial disease, strongly associated with smoking. However, little is known about the role of environmental factors such as ambient air pollution in MC pathophysiology. There is an overlap in components of cigarette smoke and ambient air pollution. Therefore, the aim of this study was to...

Background: Research articles tend to focus on positive findings in their abstract, especially if multiple outcomes have been studied. At the same time, search queries in databases are generally limited to the abstract, title and keywords fields of an article. Negative findings are therefore less likely to be detected by systematic searches and to...

Background: DNA double strand breaks are the cytotoxic lesions produced by ionising radiation. Critical for the repair of these lesions is the DNA damage response protein MRE11 which, in a complex with RAD50 and NBS1, mediates DNA damage signalling and double-strand break repair. We previously found the presence of an MRE11 germline single nucleot...

Purpose: Depression is common in adolescents and long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (LCPUFA) are suggested to be associated with depression. However, research in adolescents is limited. Furthermore, self-esteem has never been studied in relation to LCPUFA. The objective here was to determine associations of depression and self-esteem with eico...

Long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (LCPUFA) are important for brain development and function, maybe especially during adolescence. Observational studies have demonstrated an association between fish consumption (a source of LCPUFA) and cognition in adolescents, but intervention trials are lacking. The goal of the current study was to investigat...

Advocating continued health into old age, so called successful aging, is a growing public health goal. However, the development of tools to measure aging is limited by the lack of appropriate outcome measures, and operational definitions of successful aging. Using exploratory factor analysis, we attempted to identify distinguishable health domains...

Maternal pre-pregnancy weight has been related with young singletons’ cognitive and behavioral development, but it is not clear if it has an effect on temperament. We used a twin cohort to evaluate the association between maternal pre-pregnancy body mass index (BMI) and infants’ temperament. The mothers of 834 twins answered questions regarding the...

Objectives To quantify the health‐related quality of life (HRQoL) of bladder cancer (BC) patients around the time of diagnosis and to test the hypotheses of a 2‐factors model for the QLQ‐C30. Methods Within the Bladder Cancer Prognoses Programme (BCPP), a multicentre cohort study, sociodemographic data were collected using semi‐structured face‐to‐...

Objectives To develop a focused panel of somatic mutations (SMs) present in the majority of urothelial bladder cancers (UBCs), to investigate the diagnostic and prognostic utility of this panel, and to compare the identification of SMs in urinary cell pellet (cp)DNA and cell‐free (cf)DNA as part of the development of a non‐invasive clinical assay....

ABSTRACT Objective: To summarize the literature that has examined the association between a motor vehicle collision (MVC) related neck injury and future neck pain (NP) in comparison with the population that has not been exposed to neck injury from an MVC. Literature Survey: Neck injury resulting from a MVC is associated with a high rate of chronic...

Objective To summarize the literature that has examined the association between a motor vehicle collision (MVC) related neck injury and future neck pain (NP) in comparison with the population that has not been exposed to neck injury from an MVC. Literature Survey Neck injury resulting from a MVC is associated with a high rate of chronicity. Progno...

The published online version contains mistake in the Abstract section. The percentages for 'any positive lifestyle change' and 'improved dietary practices' have unintentionally been incorrectly reported.

Background/objectives: Polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) status during pregnancy has been suggested to influence offspring obesity and cardiometabolic health. We assessed whether prenatal PUFA exposure is associated with rapid infant growth, childhood BMI, and cardiometabolic profile. Subjects/methods: In the Dutch MEFAB (n = 266) and Greek RHEA...