Articles: disease.
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Observational Study
Usefulness of 99mTc-ASC lymphoscintigraphy and SPECT/CT in the evaluation of rare lymphatic disorders: Gorham-Stout disease, lymphangioma, and lymphangioleiomyomatosis.
The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of Tc-antimony sulfide colloid (ASC) lymphoscintigraphy and single photon emission computed tomography/computed tomography (SPECT/CT) in the evaluation of rare lymphatic disorders, including Gorham--Stout disease (GSD), lymphangioma, and lymphangioleiomyomatosis (LAM). Nine patients suspected to have rare lymphatic disorders were included in this retrospective study. All patients underwent Tc-ASC lymphoscintigraphy and SPECT/CT to evaluate the lesions. ⋯ LAM presents as multiple thin-walled cysts in the bilateral lungs and multiple retroperitoneal enlarged lymph nodes with increased tracer uptake. Tc-ASC lymphoscintigraphy and SPECT/CT could comprehensively and specifically detect some rare lymphatic disorders, namely, GSD, lymphangioma, and LAM. This technique is useful for the evaluation of GSD, lymphangioma, and LAM.
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Observational Study
Identification of osteoporosis markers through bioinformatic functional analysis of serum proteome.
Osteoporosis is a severe chronic skeletal disorder that increases the risks of disability and mortality; however, the mechanism of this disease and the protein markers for prognosis of osteoporosis have not been well characterized. This study aims to characterize the imbalanced serum proteostasis, the disturbed pathways, and potential serum markers in osteoporosis by using a set of bioinformatic analyses. In the present study, the large-scale proteomics datasets (PXD006464) were adopted from the Proteome Xchange database and processed with MaxQuant. ⋯ The bioinformatic analyses revealed a highly overlapped functional protein classification and the gene ontology terms between the upregulated and downregulated protein groups. Protein-protein interactions and pathway analyses showed a high enrichment in protein synthesis, inflammation, and immune response in the upregulated proteins, and cell adhesion and cytoskeleton regulation in the downregulated proteins. Our findings greatly expand the current view of the roles of serum proteins in osteoporosis and shed light on the understanding of its underlying mechanisms and the discovery of serum proteins as potential markers for the prognosis of osteoporosis.
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Over the past decades, the incidence of prostate cancer in Taiwan kept rising. Many possible factors including the utility of prostate specific antigen tests, lifestyle remodeling, and patient's comorbidities may contribute to the increasing of incidence or prostate cancer. We aim to use the nationwide Health and Welfare Database (HWD) to investigate possible associated factors. ⋯ The trends of incidence of prostate cancer, utilization of PSA testing, and underlying diseases related to metabolic syndrome at the diagnoses of cancer were similar, increasing every year in the study period. The results suggested that increasing use of PSA tests may increase the diagnosis of prostate cancers. Underlying diseases related to metabolic syndrome might also affect the incidence of prostate cancer.
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Short stature is reportedly associated with cardiovascular disease (CVD). However, the mechanism underlying this intriguing epidemiological finding is unclear. Pulse wave velocity (PWV), a marker of vascular stiffness, is a predictor of future CVD. ⋯ In the multiple regression analysis with adjustment for identified confounders, group height was a predictor of baPWV (P for trend = .003) in younger men (<50 years old) but not in older men, while group height was correlated with baPWV in older women (≥50 years old, P for trend = .014) but not in younger women. Height is inversely correlated with baPWV in subjects without overt CVD, especially in younger men and older women. This may explain the historical epidemiological observation of an inverse relationship between height and CVD.