The University Medical Center in Groningen (UMCG) is not only a hospital that treats COVID-19 patients, it is also a research institute where our investigators are currently busy studying the virus, the development of the disease and the effect of the current crisis on physical and mental health.
October 20, 2021
Frailty is increasingly recognized as one of the most important predictors of outcomes in various syndromes and diseases. There is a lack of data on frailty and Covid-19, which is an important topic related to Healthy Ageing, one of the fundamental themes of the University Medical Center in Groningen (UMCG), the Netherlands. Given the aging population in the Northern Netherlands, the population admitted to the hospital is expected to be of a relatively older age.
October 18, 2021
After recovery from the acute symptoms of COVID-19, a substantial proportion of people experience persistent symptoms of physical, psychological, and cognitive nature: Long COVID. It is unclear what the causes and consequences of these complaints are for the individual and society and how healthcare can respond to them.
Read the article "ZonMw grant for research improving care Long COVID patients""
October 13, 2021
COVID-19 is often asymptomatic or with milder symptoms in children compared with adults. However, information regarding the circulation of the virus among children remains limited and the role of the transmission from children to adults is yet unknown.
October 7, 2021
What are potential impacts of COVID-19 policies on children and adolescents and which public health responses are in place that aim to mitigate these adverse health impacts?
There is mounting concern that large-scale containment policies on movement and travel, closures of day care, schools and public places and bans on social gatherings are likely to impact adversely on children and adolescents.
Read the article "Collateral damage of Covid-19 policies for children"
Most patients with cancer receiving immunotherapy, chemotherapy, or both as treatment for solid tumors respond well to vaccination against the pandemic coronavirus. A study performed in the UMCG in Groningen, the Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam, and the Netherlands Cancer Institute / Antoni van Leeuwenhoek hospital in Amsterdam, in collaboration with the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) and the Netherlands Comprehensive Cancer Organisation (IKNL), shows that vaccination of patients being treated for a solid tumor is safe and often effective. These results were presented at the European Society of Medical Oncology annual congress and will be published in The Lancet Oncology, both on 20 September.
Read the article "Vaccination against Sars-CoV-2 works well during cancer therapy for solid tumors"
September 7, 2021
Patients with COVID-19 have a substantially increased risk of thrombosis, even when treated with antithrombotic therapy. A team led by Prof. Ton Lisman at the Department of Experimental Surgery of the University Medical Center in Groningen, last year started studying the underlying mechanisms leading to this thrombotic risk. Their study started on a small cohort of COVID-19 patients seen by their collaborators at the Hospital Clinic Barcelona in Spain. Their results, published in the Journal of Thrombosis and Haemostasis in August 2020, showed that these patients treated with antithrombotic drugs still have ongoing activation of coagulation, suggesting that an alternative therapy is urgently needed. Since then, the group together with their collaborators have collected many data on patients cohorts and published several papers.
|Read the article "Understanding the increased risk of thrombosis in COVID-19 patients"
July 15, 2021
Due to demographic developments, the population of older adults increases in size every year. This ageing population is more vulnerable to infectious diseases, such as pneumonia and influenza, which leads to increased mortality in this group. In addition, older individuals are also less responsive to vaccination, due to the age-related deregulation of the immune response. The ability of influenza vaccine, for example, to induce protection has an efficacy between 70-90% in children and adults, but is dropping to 30-50% in people over 65 years of age.
Read the article "Vaccines and infectious diseases in ageing population"
June 6, 2021
Because Dutch people became more self-reliant during the coronavirus pandemic, the extent to which DNA influences their behaviour and wellbeing has become greater. This is the conclusion of a study of 30,000 participants of the Lifelines coronavirus study conducted by the University of Groningen (UG) and the University Medical Center Groningen (UMCG).
Read the article "Vaccines and infectious diseases in ageing population"
During the period that primary schools were closed, 11% of young children did not play with children from outside their own family. In addition, one in three parents did not understand all of the teaching material for children in the top class. These findings come from the Lifelines Corona study carried out by the University of Groningen (UG) and the University Medical Center Groningen (UMCG). The study provides insight into how over 2,000 families with children of primary school age managed home schooling while the schools were closed.
Read the article "One in ten young children did not play with friends during the coronavirus pandemic"
The ISBA Fellowship has awarded Yingying Cong, postdoctoral researcher in the laboratory of Prof. Fulvio Reggiori at the Department of Biomedical Sciences of Cells and Systems of the UMCG, a ISBA Fellowship worth € 30.000. With the grant she will be able to develop a pan-anti-coronavirus compounds that specifically target the complex we found.
Read the article "Yingying Cong awarded ISBA Fellowship by developing an anti-coronavirus compound"
March 31, 2021
Patients on the waiting list for elective surgery benefit from a COVID-19 vaccination prior to their operation. Globally, thousands of postoperative deaths due to the virus may be prevented.
These conclusions were drawn based on the data from a global study among more than 140,000 surgical patients. Schelto Kruijff, surgical oncologist at the UMCG and Jean-Paul de Vries, vascular surgeon and chair of the department of surgery at the UMCG, coordinated the Dutch contribution to this study. The results were published in the scientific journal British Journal of Surgery.
Read the article "Patients on the waiting list for surgery benefit from COVID-19 vaccination"
March 25, 2021
How is it possible in many cases that when someone contracts the coronavirus, their family members do not become infected? The RIVM (National Institute for Public Health and the Environment), the University of Groningen and the University Medical Center Groningen (UMCG) will use data from the Lifelines coronavirus study to research how the transmission of the coronavirus within families works. To this end, the antibodies in the blood of 500 families in the Northern Netherlands will be studied.
Read the article "Study with Lifelines data into the transmission of the coronavirus within households"
The UMCG is going to study a potential COVID-19 vaccine: the AKS-452 vaccine produced by Akston Biosciences in the United States. The goal of the study is to research the safety and tolerability of and the reaction of the immune system to the vaccine. For the study, the UMCG is looking for 176 healthy volunteers aged between 18 and 65 who are willing to be vaccinated with the potential vaccine.
Read the article UMCG to study potential coronavirus vaccine"
A very significant number of international studies indicate that if possible, operations planned for patients who test positive for COVID-19 should be postponed for seven weeks.
These patients appear to be two-and-a-half times more likely to die after an operation if the procedure takes place within the first six weeks of having tested positive. Over 140,000 patients in almost 1,700 hospitals worldwide took part in this study, including seventeen hospitals in the Netherlands. Schelto Kruijff and Jean Paul de Vries, surgical oncologist and vascular surgeon/head of the surgical department at the University Medical Center Groningen (UMCG) respectively, are coordinating the Dutch part of the study. The results have been published in the journal Anaesthesia.
Human Cell Atlas researchers found cells vulnerable to viral infection in a wide range of tissues in the body.
Read the article "Massive single-cell study suggests biological roots of COVID-19 risk factors"
