Diversity of Rotavirus Strains among Children with Acute Diarrhea in Karachi, Pakistan.

One of the common viral pathogens in infectious diarrhea is Rotavirus; in developing countries, it is a primary cause of deaths in children less than five years of age. This study was planned to find out the etiologic agents of acute watery diarrhea. In this study, 1465 stool samples were analyzed with the symptoms of acute diarrhea. Demographic data analysis showed no. of episodes of diarrhea, vomiting, and fever. All samples were checked by ELISA technique for the presence of Rotavirus circulating strains. More than 6% patients were found to be positive with Rotavirus. Common Rotavirus genotypes, including G2P4, G2P6, G3P4, G8P4, G8P6, G9P4, and G10P4, were detected in patients through RT-PCR. This study concluded that detection of rotavirus strain diversity and management of diarrheal patients may identify assortment of emerging strains and reduce emergence of antimicrobial resistance and repeated episodes of diarrhea, which may also help to avoid and manage the essential nutrients lost leading to malnutrition and stunted growth, as well as to reduce high mortality rate in young children less than five years.

Potential Risk Factors for Breast Cancer in Pakistani Women.

BACKGROUND: Breast cancer is the most common female malignancy worldwide and its incidence is on the rise in Pakistan. The aim of this case-control study was to quantify the association of various risk factors with breast cancer risk among Pakistani women. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 2,246 women were studied, including 1,238 women with histologically confirmed breast cancer patients and age matched control subjects (N=1008) without breast cancer and other chronic diseases. Subjects were interviewed using a specifically designed questionnaire. Unconditional logistic regression was applied. Subsequent disease-specific mortality was also measured. RESULTS: In this study, majority of the breast cancer patients (69.59%) were in age ranges of 40s and 50s. BMI greater than 25kg/m2 (OR=1.57; 95%CI, 1.26-1.90 and OR=1.60; 95%CI, 1.26-2.03), marital status of unmarried (OR=2.03; 95%CI, 1.69-2.44), lack of breast feeding, smoking (current or ever), lack of physical activity and post-menopausal status were found to have significant positive associations with breast cancer. It was also observed that increased parity reduced the disease risk. A larger number of cases (58.1%) had their right breast affected while 22.8% had other complications as well. CONCLUSIONS: This exploratory analysis indicated a number of risk factors to be associated with increased risk of breast cancer. It was also observed that mean age at diagnosis is a decade earlier than in western countries. It is hoped that our findings will facilitate establishment of adequate evidence-based awareness and preventive measures for Pakistani women.

Association of the CYP17-34T/C Polymorphism with Pancreatic Cancer Risk.

Pancreatic cancer is a leading cause of fatality worldwide. Several population studies have been conducted on genetic diagnosis of pancreatic cancer but the results from epidemiologic studies are very limited. CYP17A gene has a role in disease formation but its influence on pancreatic cancer is unclear. A polymorphism in the 5'UTR promoter region of CYP17A1-34T/C (A1/A2) has been associated with multiple cancers. The aim of the current study was to assess associations of this polymorphism and socio-demographic risk factors with pancreatic cancer. A total of 255 and 320 controls were enrolled in the study, and were genetically analyzed through PCR-RFLP. Statistical analysis was conducted with observed genotype frequencies and odds ratios (ORs) and 95% CIs were estimated using unconditional logistic regression. The impact of socio-demographic factors was accessed through Kaplen-Meir analysis. According to our results, the A2/A2 genotype was significantly associated with pancreatic cancer (OR=2.1, 95%CI = 1.3-3.5). Gender female (OR=2.6, 95%CI=1.8-3.7), age group 80s/80+ years (OR=2.2, 95% CI=1.2-4), smoking both former (OR=4.6, 95% CIs=2.5-8.8) and current (OR=3.6, 95% CI=2-6.7), and family history (OR=7.1; 95%CI = 4.6-11.4) were also found associated with increased risk. Current study suggests that along with established risk factors for pancreatic cancer CYP17A1-34T/C may play a role. However, on the basis of small sample size the argument cannot be fully endorsed and larger scale studies are recommended.

Associations of Most Prevalent Risk Factors with Lung Cancer and Their Impact on Survival Length.

Lung cancer is one of the most common malignancies in the world. Its incidence and mortality rates are on the rise in Pakistan. However, epidemiological studies to identify common lung cancer determinants in the Pakistani population have been limited. In this study, data of 440 cases and 323 controls were collected from different hospitals in Peshawar and Islamabad, along with information about socio-demographic factors including age, sex and smoking. Univariate and multi-factorial analyses of socio-demographic factors in association with each other were also performed. Overall survival analysis highlighted that, out of 440 patients in the lung cancer dataset, 204 people were uncensored with a median survival time of 13 months (95% CI=12-18). There were 41 femaleand 399 male patients. Differences were observed between length of survival in the males and females (χ12 = 6.1; p-value = 0.01). Gender was observed to be significantly related to survival (p-value< 0.01), with better survival in females (hazard ratio=2). Cox regression was extended to adjust for the covariate age (z = 2.5; p-value = 0.02). Survival analysis was also performed on the basis of smoking groups (current smokers, former smokers and never smoked individuals) and smoking duration (smoking duration>10 years, <10 years and never smoked). Smoking duration was significantly associated with survival (p-value < 0.01), with better survival in never smokers in comparison to both smoking for greater or less than 10 years. Strong associations were observed for smoking group with duration greater than 10 years, OR=6.1(3.9-9.5) on univariate and multi-factorial analysis OR=11.3(CI=6.8-19.3).

Sequence and structure based assessment of nonsynonymous SNPs in hypertrichosis universalis.

Hairs are complex structures, making a protective layer and serves different biological functions. TRPS1, a transcription factor is one of the candidate genes causing congenital hypertrichosis, an excessive hair growth at inappropriate body parts. SNPs of TRPS1 were retrieved from dbSNP which were screened by SIFT and PolyPhen servers based on their functional impacts. Out of the screened SNPs, rs181507248 and rs146506752 were predicted as intolerant and damaging by both the servers. The predicted tertiary structure of the native TRPS1 after refinement and validation was successfully submitted to the Protein Model Database and was assigned with PMDB ID PM0077843, as it was previously unpredicted. It was observed through the structure based analysis that, the SNPs rs181507248 and rs146506752 caused significant changes in the secondary and tertiary structures as well as the physiochemical properties of TRPS1 protein. It can thus be concluded that the changed properties due to these single nucleotide polymorphisms effect the interactions of TRPS1 which result in congenital hypertrichosis.