Visualization of estimated prevalence of CES-D positivity accounting for background factors and AIS scores.

Development of methods for population screening is necessary to improve the efficiency of secondary prevention of diseases. Until now, a common cutoff has been used for all people in the data set. However, if big data for health information can be used to modify individual cutoffs according to background factors, it may avoid wasting medical resources. Here we show that the estimated prevalence of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale positivity can be visualized by a heatmap using background factors from epidemiological big data and scores from the Athens Insomnia Scale. We also show that cutoffs based on the estimated prevalence can be used to decrease the number of people screened without decreasing the number of prevalent cases detected. Since this method can be applied to the screening of different outcomes, we believe our work can contribute to the development of efficient screening methods for various diseases.

Impact of metallothionein gene polymorphisms on the risk of lung cancer in a Japanese population.

Metallothioneins (MTs) are cysteine-rich proteins that act as antioxidants. A case-control study was conducted to assess the effects of gene polymorphisms in the MT region on the risk of lung cancer in Japanese subjects: 769 lung cancer cases and 939 non-cancer controls. Associations were evaluated using logistic regression models with adjustment for potential confounders (age, sex, and lifestyle factors including smoking, drinking, and green-yellow vegetable intake). We found five polymorphisms in the MT-1 gene region that showed statistically significant associations with lung cancer. Of these polymorphisms, rs7196890 showed the strongest association (odds ratio: 1.30, P = 0.004, 95% confidence interval: 1.09-1.55). The impact of the polymorphism decreased with the increase of smoking, and virtually no association with lung cancer was observed among heavy smokers whose pack-year values were 30 or more (odds ratio: 1.02, P = 0.93, 95% confidence interval: 0.67-1.55). These results suggest that polymorphisms in the MT gene are moderately associated with the risk of lung cancer and that the associations are modified by lifestyle factors.