Comparison of whole-body PET/PET-CT and conventional imaging procedures for distant metastasis staging in patients with breast cancer: a meta-analysis.

AIM: To compare the performance of whole-body PET/PET-CT with that of conventional imaging procedures for the overall assessment of distant metastasis in patients with breast cancer. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The authors performed a meta-analysis of all available studies of whole-body PET/PET-CT compared with conventional imaging procedures. They calculated sensitivities, specificities, positive likelihood ratios, negative likelihood ratios, and constructed summary receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves using bivariate regression models for whole-body PET/PET-CT and conventional imaging procedures, respectively. RESULTS: Across six studies (609 patients), sensitivity, specificity, positive likelihood ratios, and negative likelihood ratios of whole-body PET/PET-CT were 0.99 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.88-1.00), 0.95 (95% CI = 0.89-0.98), 21.1 (95% CI = 8.2-55.5), and 0.02 (95% CI = 0.001-0.13), respectively, and of conventional imaging procedures they were 0.57 (95% CI = 0.37-0.74), 0.88 (95% CI = 0.78-0.94), 4.8 (95% CI = 2.8-8.2) and 0.49 (95% CI = 0.33-0.74), respectively. CONCLUSION: Compared with conventional imaging procedures, whole-body PET/PET-CT had excellent diagnostic performance for distant metastasis staging in patients with breast cancer.

Analysis on the genetic characteristics of the wide-type measles virus circulating in Zhejiang province in 2005 / 中华流行病学杂志

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To study the genetic characteristics of measles viruses circulating in Zhejiang province in 2005.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>4 groups of measles viruses isolated in outbreaks and the H and N gene were amplified by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). PCR products were purified, sequenced and data was analyzed.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>All of the 4 measles isolates belonged to genotype H1 which had been a main genotype containing all of the isolates in China. The isolates shared 99.2% -99.7% identity of amino acid sequence on H and 99.8% identity of amino acid sequence on N gene. When comparing to the China vaccine strain (Shanghai 191), there were 95.2%-95.5% homogeneties and 95.5% homogeneties on H and N gene respectively.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>Data from phylogenic trees of H and N gene revealed that the wide-type measles viruses circulating in Zhejiang province in 2005 all belonged to genotype H1. There were obvious differences on genetic characteristics between the isolates and the genotype A (Shanghai 191).</p>