Evaluation of the lipid profile in type 2 diabetes mellitus patients in Greece.

BACKGROUND: Diabetes mellitus (DM) is one of the most serious global health problems. In Greece, DM constitutes a public health problem and is highly associated with decreasing levels of physical activity, increasing obesity rates, population ageing, and unhealthy lifestyle and dietary behaviors. MATERIALS: In this study we evaluated the sera from 800 type 2 diabetic patients recruited during a three year period of time and 200 age matched controls without any clinical history of diabetes. For each subject we measured levels of fasting glucose (GLU), total cholesterol (TCHOL), triglycerides (TRG), high density lipoproteins (HDL-C), and glycosylated hemoglobin (GHbA1c) and calculated levels of low density lipoproteins (LDL-C). The aims of our study were to find characteristics of lipid parameters in the population under study, to find gender differences in the parameters, to evaluate correlations between pairs of lipid parameters, and to compare the lipid parameters between patients and healthy controls focusing on patient gender. For this purpose we analyzed the data using descriptive statistics, x-square test, logistic regression and ROC curve analysis. RESULTS: According to our results, 70.0% of diabetic patients presented at least one lipid abnormality. Elevated LDL-C, elevated TCHOL, elevated TRG, and reduced HDL-C levels were noted in 28.37%, 36.37%, 39.01%, and 30.12% of the patients, respectively. The combination of elevated TRG and reduced HDL-C was the most preva- lent of the combined lipid abnormalities. Moreover, there are statistically significant differences in the levels of HDL-C, TCHOL, TRG, and GLU between men and women. In contrast, no differences were observed in levels of GHbA1c. CONCLUSIONS: We identified an important linear relationship between LDL-C and TCHOL (LDL-C = -28.69 + TCHOL * 0.75, adjusted R2 = 76.96%. Finally, we calculated optimal thresholds for GLU and GHb1Ac levels using two methodologies: overall accuracy maximization or sensitivity-specificity minimization for the identification of patient from healthy controls. Differences in the optimal thresholds between men and women were not observed.

Detection of antinuclear antibodies (ANA), antibodies to double stranded DNA (anti-dsDNA) and antibodies to extractable nuclear antigens (anti-ENA) in Greek patients.

BACKGROUND: The diagnosis of autoimmune diseases depends on clinical history, physical examination, and laboratory detection of specific autoantibodies directed against nuclear or cytoplasmic antigens. The aim of this study was to investigate the types and prevalence of serum ANA, anti-dsDNA, and anti-ENA antibodies in a population examined at the Immunology Laboratory of the Naval Hospital of Athens and their correlation with patient age and gender. METHODS: We evaluated the sera of 3000 patients, both male and female, aged between 18 and 75 years old, born in different parts of Greece. All requests for ANA detection were performed by enzyme linked immunoassay (ELI SA). All ELISA borderline, weak positive and pbsitive results were run on the indirect immunofluorescence assay (IFA) on Hep-2 cells. Anti-dsDNA antibodies were detected by IFA on Crithidia luciliae substrate slides. Antibodies to Sm, RNP, SS-A(Ro), SS-B(La), Jo-1, and Scl-70 were determined by an immunodot qualitative test. RESULTS: 206 patients were positive for ANA, representing a prevalence of 6.87%. The positive samples demonstrated the expected variety of titers and reactivity patterns. 9 samples (4.37%) presented anti-dsDNA positive result and 44 (21.36%) presented reactivity to various ENA autoantibodies. All the examined autoantibodies presented a higher prevalence among women. CONCLUSIONS: In this study we estimated the prevalence of ANA, anti-dsDNA, and anti-ENA antibodies in samples of 3000 sera. We followed the strategy of performing immunofluorescence testing in order to confirm positive ELISA results, proposed by many scientists. We also evaluated autoantibody titers and fluorescence patterns, and we examined the correlation of autoantibody presence with patient age and gender.

Genotype distribution in chronic hepatitis C patients in Greece.

BACKGROUND: Hepatitis C is a major public health problem. HCV infection contributes to progressive liver disease, cirrhosis, and hepatocellular carcinoma. HCV has high genetic heterogeneity and is classified into various genotypes and subtypes. Regional differences exist in their distribution. The aim of this study was to investigate the relative frequency of HCV genotypes in Greek patients with chronic infection. METHODS: We evaluated 82 patients with chronic HCV infection, both males and females, belonging to different risk groups. We performed viral load measurement and HCV genotyping in all specimens. RESULTS: HCV genotype 3 was the most prevalent (41.5%) followed by genotype 1 (34.1%), 2 (12.2%), 4 (10.9%), and 5 (1.2%). Genotype 6 was not detected in any patient. Most prevalent subtypes were 3a (32.9%), 1b (26.8%), and 2a (6.1%). Fourteen subjects revealed mixed infections within types. There were no cases with mixed infections across types. CONCLUSIONS: Our data indicate that genotypes 3a and 1b are the most prevalent in Greek patients. Genotype 3a is predominant in younger patients and also in male patients. Moreover, HCV genotype distribution is in continuous temporal change in Greece.