Impact of Type 1 Versus Type 2 Diabetes on Developing Herpes Zoster and Post-herpetic Neuralgia: A Population-based Cohort Study.

Type 2 diabetes is associated with an increased risk of herpes zoster and postherpetic neuralgia. However, the association of type 1 diabetes with herpes zoster or postherpetic neuralgia remains unclear. This retrospective cohort study using Taiwan's Health Insurance Research Database included 199,566 patients with type 1 diabetes and 1,458,331 with type 2 diabetes, identified during the period 2000 to 2012. Patients with type 1 diabetes had a significantly higher risk of developing herpes zoster than those with type 2 diabetes (p < 0.001). Across all age groups, the impact of diabetes on herpes zoster was greater in type 1 than in type 2 diabetes. Patients with both type 1 and type 2 diabetes had a 1.45-fold higher risk of post-herpetic neuralgia than those without diabetes (hazard ratio 1.45, 95% confidence interval 1.28-1.65; hazard ratio 1.45, 95% confidence interval 1.37-1.52, respectively), and there was no difference between the 2 types of diabetes (hazard ratio 1.06; 95% confidence interval 0.93-1.21). The results recommend consideration of herpes zoster vaccination at an earlier age in patients with type 1 diabetes.

The Comprehensive Analyses of Genomic Variations and Assessment of TMB and PD-L1 Expression in Chinese Lung Adenosquamous Carcinoma.

The poor prognosis and fewer treatment option is a current clinical challenge for patients with lung adenosquamous carcinoma (ASC). The previous studies reported that tumor mutational burden (TMB, numbers of mutation per Megabase) is a predictor of clinical response in trials of multiple cancer types, while fewer studies assessed the relationship between TMB level and clinical features and outcomes of lung ASC. Herein, the present study enrolled Chinese patients with lung ASC. DNA was extracted from formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tumor samples and subjected to next generation sequencing (NGS), and the 457 cancer related genes were evaluated. The results demonstrated that 95 unique genes with somatic variations were identified in the enrolled patients. The top three of high frequency gene mutations were TP53, EGFR, PIK3CA with rates of 62% (13 cases), 48% (10 cases), and 14% (3 cases), respectively. We identified TMB value was significantly correlated with pathological stages (p < 0.05) and invasion of lymph node (p < 0.05). However, TMB value was not significantly correlated to other clinicopathologic indexes, for examples, age, sex, smoking history, tumor size, as well as TP53 and EGFR mutations in lung ASC. Moreover, TMB value was associated with the overall survival (p < 0.01), but not with the relapse-free survival (p = 0.23). In conclusion, this study indicated that lung ASC with high TMB might be associated with the invasion of lymph node and short overall survival. Immunotherapy might be a promising treatment option for lung ASC patients with high TMB.

Lack of association between matrix metalloproteinase-1 gene rs1799750 polymorphism and osteoarthritis susceptibility: a meta-analysis.

Background. A relationship between matrix metalloproteinase-1 (MMP-1)-1607 (rs1799750) gene polymorphism and osteoarthritis (OA) susceptibility was reported in the Bioscience Reports journal; however, these results were inconsistent. To evaluate the specific relationship, we used a meta-analysis study to clarify the controversy. Methods. The relevant articles were retrieved on 20 October 2018 from PubMed, Elsevier, Springer, Ebase (Ovid), and Google Scholar. The number of alleles and genotypes for MMP-1 was obtained. Odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were used to estimate the association between MMP-1-1607 (rs1799750) 1G/2G promoter polymorphism and OA, while the Egger's test was used to assess heterogeneity among studies and publication bias. All statistical analyses were conducted using STATA 12.0 software. Results. A total of six case-control studies covering 1133 cases and 1119 controls were included in the final meta-analysis. There was no significant association between MMP-1-1607 1G/2G promoter polymorphism and OA in all genetic models (2G versus 1G: OR = 1.12, 95% CI = 0.78-1.60; 1G/2G versus 1G/1G: OR = 0.73, 95% CI = 0.32-1.67; 2G/2G versus 1G/1G: OR = 1.31, 95% CI = 0.57-2.98; the recessive model: OR = 1.23, 95% CI = 0.63-2.41; and the dominant model: OR = 1.25, 95% CI = 0.79-1.97). We obtained similar results for the subgroup analysis using ethnicity and type of disease. Conclusion. We systematically investigated the association between MMP-1-1607 (rs1799750) 1G/2G polymorphism and OA susceptibility; however, the results show no correlation.

Investigating the Association between Chronic Kidney Disease and Ischaemic Stroke from a Health Examination Database.

Stroke has become one of the leading causes of death, with ischaemic stroke as the most common type of stroke occurrence compared to haemorrhagic stroke. Chronic kidney disease(CKD), another important cause of death, shares several traditional cardiovascular riskfactors with ischaemic stroke. Therefore, it is important to examine the existence of shared risk factors in the association between CKD and ischaemic stroke. This study used a health examination database from a medical centre in Taiwan. A generalized linear regression analysis was used to determine the association between CKD and ischaemic stroke. The Maentel-Haenszel test was performed to analyse the effect of possible confounding factors on the association between CKD and ischaemic stroke. A prevalence rate study showed that more subjects with CKD suffered from ischaemic stroke than subjects without CKD. Diabetes, hypertension, hypertriglyceridemia, and hypercholesterolemia were associated with increased risks of ischaemic stroke in CKD subjects. There was an inverse association of the odds ratio of ischaemic stroke between CKD and non-CKD patients, which implied that younger subjects with CKD should be made aware of ischaemic stroke prevention.

Applying sequential pattern mining to investigate cerebrovascular health outpatients' re-visit patterns.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Increases in outpatients seeking medical check-ups are expanding the number of health examination data records, which can be utilized for medical strategic planning and other purposes. However, because hospital visits by outpatients seeking medical check-ups are unpredictable, those patients often cannot receive optimal service due to limited facilities of hospitals. To resolve this problem, this study attempted to predict re-visit patterns of outpatients. METHOD: Two-phase sequential pattern mining (SPM) and an association mining method were chosen to predict patient returns using sequential data. The data were grouped according to the outpatients' personal information and evaluated by a discriminant analysis to check the significance of the grouping. Furthermore, SPM was employed to generate frequency patterns from each group and extract a general association pattern of return. RESULTS: Results of sequence patterns and association mining in this study provided valuable insights in terms of outpatients' re-visit behaviors for regular medical check-ups. Cosine and Jaccard are two symmetric measures which were used in this study to indicate the degree of association between two variables. For instance, Jaccard values of variable abnormal blood pressure associated with an abnormal body-mass index (BMI) and/or abnormal blood sugar were respectively 47.5% and 100%, for the two-visit and three-visit behavior patterns. These results indicated that the corresponding pair of variables was more reliable when covering the three-visit behavior pattern than the two-visit behavior. Thus, appropriate preventive measures or suggestions for other medical treatments can be prepared for outpatients that have this pattern on their third visit. The higher degree of association implies that the corresponding behavior pattern might influence outpatients' intentions to regularly seek medical check-ups concerning the risk of stroke. Furthermore, a radiology diagnosis (i.e., magnetic resonance imaging or neck vascular ultrasound) plays an important role in the association with a re-visit behavior pattern with respective 50% and 70% Cosine and Jaccard values in general behavior {f11}∧{f01}. These findings can serve as valuable information to increase the quality of medical services and marketing, by suggesting appropriate treatment for the subsequent visit after learning the behavior patterns. CONCLUSIONS: The proposed method can provide valuable information related to outpatients' re-visit behavior patterns based on hidden knowledge generated from sequential patterns and association mining results. For marketing purposes, medical practitioners can take behavior patterns studied in this paper into account to raise patients' awareness of several possible medical conditions that might arise on subsequent visits and encourage them to take preventive measures or suggest other medical treatments.

Developing a data mining approach to investigate association between physician prescription and patient outcome - a study on re-hospitalization in Stevens-Johnson Syndrome.

Stevens-Johnson syndrome (SJS) is a potentially life-threatening skin reaction. Drugs are the major causes for cases of SJS. While treating patients with SJS, the first and most important step is to identify and discontinue any possible responsible drugs. However, potential drugs that may lead to SJS are many and encompass various therapeutic areas. Very few physicians are familiar with the potential risk of all these drugs. If properly treated, most SJS cases are expected to recover without much sequelae. All drugs that have been associated with SJS should be avoided in these patients to prevent recurrence. If the physicians fail to identify and discontinue the drugs causing SJS, or even adding new drugs related to SJS, the patient may get worse or SJS may recur. These conditions can cause SJS patients to be re-hospitalized. Currently the reasons for re-hospitalization of SJS patients in Taiwan are not known. This study uses Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database to analyze the causes of re-hospitalization for cases of SJS. First, we classified prescription history of re-hospitalized patients through the rule-based classification method. Secondly, by using the basic prescription actions, we identified drug association patterns. Then, by employing A-priori algorithm, pairs of drugs with relatively higher frequency of appearance were identified and their degrees of association were measured by using selected symmetric and asymmetric association mining methods. Finally, by listing and ranking up these pairs of drugs according to the value of support based on their degrees of association, we provide prescribing physicians with possible means of increasing the awareness and reducing re-hospitalization of SJS patients.

Cloning, overexpression, purification, and characterization of a new iron superoxide dismutase from Jatropha curcas.

A novel iron superoxide dismutase (Fe-SOD) gene from Jatropha curcas was cloned and expressed in Escherichia coli BL21 (DE3). This recombinant enzyme was isolated by a combined procedure involving immobilized metal-ion affinity chromatography and ion-exchange chromatography. The apparent molecular mass of this purified enzyme (designated as JcFe-SOD) was 35 kDa on SDS-PAGE. The full-length complementary DNA sequence of JcFe-SOD contained a 918-bp open reading frame encoding a 305-amino-acid precursor of 34.589 kDa. The result of matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry showed that the purified enzyme may own two forms: a dimer and a monomer. The enzyme was relatively stable and showed 54% activity when incubated in 70°C for 60 Min. JcFe-SOD was found to have good pH stability in the pH range of 5.5-9.5 at 25°C over 1 H incubation. The activity of this enzyme was gradually inhibited by increasing concentration of H2O2, 2-mercaptoethanol, and ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid. An assay of the atomic absorption spectrum showed the presence of 0.41 atom of Fe in each SOD subunit.

Growth and antioxidant responses in Jatropha curcas seedling exposed to mercury toxicity.

Jatropha curcas seedlings were exposed to varying concentrations of mercury in order to investigate mercury accumulation, and the changes in growth and antioxidant enzyme activities using in vitro embryo germination and culture. Our results showed that mercury is readily accumulated by germinating embryos and growing seedlings, and its content was greater in the radicles than those of in the cotyledons and hypocotyls. This accumulation was directly correlated with an increase in tested mercury concentrations in the medium. Biomass in the cotyledons, hypocotyls and radicles increased gradually with increasing mercury concentrations, peaking in seedlings exposed to mercury concentration of 50 microM, and then decreased. Superoxide dismutase activities in the cotyledons, hypocotyls and radicles showed largest increment at mercury concentration of 100 microM. Peroxidase activities in the cotyledons and hypocotyls reached peaks at mercury concentration of 200 microM, and the highest activity in the radicles was observed at 100 microM. Catalase activities in the cotyledons and hypocotyls were significantly induced, and the highest activity in the radicles was observed at mercury concentration of 200 microM. Phenylalanine ammonia-lyase activities in the hypocotyls had a positive correlation to mercury concentrations, and the highest activities in the cotyledons and radicles were found at mercury concentrations of 200 and 100 microM, respectively. Analysis of superoxide dismutase, peroxidase and catalase isoenzymes suggested that different patterns depend on mercury concentrations and tissue types, and the staining intensities of these isoenzymes are consistent with the changes of these enzyme activities assayed in solutions.

Bounded water kinetic model of beta-galactosidase in reverse micelles.

In the present investigation, beta-galactosidase was solubilized into Aerosol OT (AOT)/isooctane reverse micelles. Kinetic data for the hydrolysis of o-nitrophenyl-beta-D-galactopyranoside (ONPG) at different pH values and molar ratios of water to AOT (Wo) were collected. It was observed that the usual kinetic model used for beta-galactosidase catalysis in aqueous systems failed to represent the experimental data. A bounded water model, however, showed a better correlation between enzymatic activity and Wo. In contrast to the aqueous system, controlling the water concentration in the reverse micelles allows the rate constants for the reaction between water molecules and glycosyl-enzyme complexes to be evaluated.