Medicine
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Recent studies show that NOTCH3 is involved in the glioma development and it is also a prognostic factor for glioma patients. However, the gene polymorphism of NOTCH3 in gliomas prognosis remains unknown. A total of 266 patients were enrolled into this study. ⋯ We found that the 684G>A polymorphism affects the tumor NOTCH3 expression level and is closely associated with a higher tumor grade, poorer tumor differentiation, and karnofsky performance score in these glioma patients. More importantly, the 684G>A polymorphism is significantly associated with the prognosis of these patients regardless of their treatment manner. Our study indicates that the NOTCH3 gene 684G>A polymorphism may be used as a prognosis marker for gliomas.
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Interleukin 33 (IL-33) is a cytokine belonging to the IL-1 superfamily. Soluble ST2 (sST2) binds to IL-33 and by functioning as trap receptor inhibits signal sending to Th2 via transmembrane ST2. Because Th2-type cytokines play an important role in fibrosis, the aim of this study is to determine whether sST2 can be used as a marker of fibrosis in chronic hepatitis B (CHB) patients or not. ⋯ According to multiple logistic regression analysis, only METAVIR fibrosis stage was found to be an independent predictor of serum sST2 elevation in CHB patients (P = 0.04). The sST2 level can be used for differentiating significant fibrosis from mild fibrosis in CHB patients. However, the efficacy of this marker should be verified by larger studies in the future.
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Observational Study
Blood Lead and Other Metal Biomarkers as Risk Factors for Cardiovascular Disease Mortality.
Analyses of the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES III) in 1988 to 1994 found an association of increasing blood lead levels < 10 μg/dL with a higher risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality. The potential need to correct blood lead for hematocrit/hemoglobin and adjust for biomarkers for other metals, for example, cadmium and iron, had not been addressed in the previous NHANES III-based studies on blood lead-CVD mortality association. We analyzed 1999 to 2010 NHANES data for 18,602 participants who had a blood lead measurement, were ≥ 40 years of age at the baseline examination and were followed for mortality through 2011. ⋯ In a nationally representative sample of U. S. adults, log-transformed blood lead was linearly associated with increased CVD mortality. Correcting blood lead for hematocrit/hemoglobin and adjustments for some biomarkers affected the association.
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To describe the profile of left-sided polymicrobial endocarditis (PE) and to compare it with monomicrobial endocarditis (ME). Among 1011 episodes of left-sided endocarditis consecutively diagnosed in 3 tertiary centers, between January 1, 1996 and December 31, 2014, 60 were polymicrobial (5.9%), 821 monomicrobial (81.7%), and in 123 no microorganism was detected (12.2%). Seven patients (0.7%) were excluded from the analysis because contamination of biologic tissue could not be discarded. ⋯ No differences on age, sex, symptoms, need of surgery, and in-hospital mortality were detected. Polymicrobial endocarditis represents 5.9% of episodes of left-sided endocarditis in our series. Despite relevant demographic and microbiologic differences between PE and ME, short-term outcome is similar.
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Descemet stripping automated endothelial keratoplasty (DSAEK) is the most common corneal transplant procedure. A key step in the procedure is preparing the donor cornea for transplantation. This can be accomplished via 1 of 3 alternatives: surgeon cuts the cornea on the day of surgery, the cornea is precut ahead of time in an offsite facility by a trained technician, or a precut cornea is purchased from an eye bank. ⋯ Threshold analysis demonstrated that if the number of cases was below 31 a year, the strategy that yielded the lowest cost was purchasing precut cornea from eye bank. If there were more than 290 cases annually, the cheapest option would be to setup precutting facility. Our findings suggest that it is more efficient for centers that are performing a large number of cornea transplants (more than 290 cases) to set up their own facility to conduct precutting.