Retraction Notice to: ALDH2 Glu504Lys Polymorphism and Susceptibility to Coronary Artery Disease and Myocardial Infarction in East Asians: A Meta-analysis.

This article has been retracted: please see Elsevier Policy on Article Withdrawal (https://www.elsevier.com/locate/withdrawalpolicy). This article has been retracted at the request of the Editorial Board of the Archives of Medical Research after receiving a complaint reporting that the article was based on an unreliable or non-existent statistical method. After analyzing the complaint and carefully reviewing the article, the Editorial Board contacted the corresponding author following due process and received no response. The Editorial Board no longer has confidence in the article and therefore decided to retract the article. Apologies are offered to readers of the journal that this was not detected during the review process.

PECSS: Pulmonary Embolism Comprehensive Screening Score to safely rule out pulmonary embolism among suspected patients presenting to emergency department.

BACKGROUND: Pulmonary embolism is a severe cardiovascular disease and can be life-threatening if left untreated. However, the detection rate of pulmonary embolism using existing pretest probability scores remained relatively low and clinical rule out often relied on excessive use of computed tomographic pulmonary angiography. METHODS: We retrospectively collected data from pulmonary embolism suspected patients in Zhongshan Hospital from July 2018 to October 2022. Pulmonary embolism diagnosis and severity grades were confirmed by computed tomographic pulmonary angiography. Patients were randomly divided into derivation and validation set. To construct the Pulmonary Embolism Comprehensive Screening Score (PECSS), we first screened for candidate clinical predictors using univariate logistic regression models. These predictors were then included in a searching algorithm with indicators of Wells score, where a series of points were assigned to each predictor. Optimal D-Dimer cutoff values were investigated and incorporated with PECSS to rule out pulmonary embolism. RESULTS: In addition to Wells score, PECSS identified seven clinical predictors (anhelation, abnormal blood pressure, in critical condition when admitted, age > 65 years and high levels of pro-BNP, CRP and UA,) strongly associated with pulmonary embolism. Patients can be safely ruled out of pulmonary embolism if PECSS ≤ 4, or if 4 < PECSS ≤ 6 and D-Dimer ≤ 2.5 mg/L. Comparing with Wells approach, PECSS achieved lower failure rates across all pulmonary embolism severity grades. These findings were validated in the held-out validation set. CONCLUSIONS: Compared to Wells score, PECSS approaches achieved lower failure rates and better compromise between sensitivity and specificity. Calculation of PECSS is easy and all predictors are readily available upon emergency department admission, making it widely applicable in clinical settings. TRAIL REGISTRATION: The study was retrospectively registered (No. CJ0647) and approved by Human Genetic Resources in China in April 2022. Ethical approval was received from the Medical Ethics Committee of Zhongshan Hospital (NO.B2021-839R).

ALDH2 Glu504Lys polymorphism and susceptibility to coronary artery disease and myocardial infarction in East Asians: a meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Emerging evidences have shown that the Glu504Lys variant in ALDH2 gene may greatly reduce the ability of ALDH2 to metabolize acetaldehyde, which could increase the risk of coronary artery disease (CAD) and myocardial infarction (MI). However, the reported results are still conflicting. To investigate the association between ALDH2 Glu504Lys polymorphism and the risk of CAD and MI in Asians, we analyzed all available studies in a meta-analysis. METHODS: A literature search of PubMed, Embase, Web of Science and Chinese BioMedical (CBM) databases was conducted for articles published before March 1, 2013. The principal outcome measure was the crude odds ratios (ORs) with their corresponding confidence intervals (95% CIs) for evaluating the strength of the association. RESULTS: Meta-analysis showed that carriers of ALDH2 504lys allele were associated with increased risks of both CAD and MI (CAD: OR = 1.28, 95% CI: 1.10-1.48, p = 0.001; MI: OR = 1.58, 95% CI: 1.15-2.19, p = 0.005). Subgroup analysis by country showed significant correlations between mutant genotypes (Glu/Lys + Lys/Lys) and increased risk to MI among Chinese and Korean populations (Chinese: OR = 1.89, 95% CI: 1.16-3.09, p = 0.011; Korean: OR = 1.69, 95%CI: 1.12-2.55, p = 0.013), whereas similar associations were not observed among Japanese populations. CONCLUSIONS: The current meta-analysis provides strong evidence that ALDH2 Glu504Lys polymorphism may be associated with increased risk of CAD and MI in East Asians, especially among Chinese and Korean populations. However, more detailed and well-designed studies are still warranted to confirm these findings.