The objective of this paper was to determine the prevalence of overactive bladder syndrome (OABS) and its risk factors among patients with other gynaecological problems.
Background: The incidence of diabetes mellitus is ever increasing. Individuals with diabetes mellitus may have concurrent mental health disorders and are shown to have poorer disease outcomes. The objectives of this study were to determine the prevalence of depression, anxiety and stress (DAS) in diabetes patients aged 20 years or more in the primary care setting.
Methods: This was a cross-sectional study involving the use of self-administered questionnaire conducted in eight primary care private and government clinics in Pulau Pinang and Melaka, Malaysia. The validated DASS-21 questionnaire was used as a screening tool for the symptoms of DAS. Prior permission was obtained from the patients and, clearance from ethical committee was obtained before the start of the study. Data analysis was done using SPSS statistical software.
Results: A total of 320 patients with diabetes from eight centres were enrolled via convenience sampling. Sample size was calculated using the Kish’s formula. The prevalence of DAS among patients with diabetes from our study was 26.6%, 40% and 19.4%, respectively. Depression was found to be significantly associated with marital status and family history of DAS; anxiety was significantly
associated with monthly household income, presence of co-morbidities and family history of DAS; and stress was significantly associated with occupation and family history of DAS.
Conclusions: The prevalence of DAS was higher in patients with diabetes compared with the general community. We recommend to routinely screen all patients with diabetes using the DASS-21 questionnaire because it is easy to perform and inexpensive.
INTRODUCTION: Diabetes-related distress (DRD) refers to patient's concerns about diabetes mellitus, its management, need of support, emotional burden and access to healthcare. The aim of this study was to translate and examine the psychometric properties of the Malay version of the 17-item Diabetes Distress Scale (MDDS-17) in adult patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2D).
METHODS: A standard procedure was used to translate the English 17-items Diabetes Distress Scale into Malay language. We used exploratory factor analysis (EFA) with principal axis factoring and promax rotation to investigate the factor structure. We explored reliability by internal consistency and 1-month test-retest reliability. Construct validity was examined using the World Health Organization quality of life-brief questionnaire, Morisky Medication Adherence Scale, Patient Health Questionnaire and disease-related clinical variables.
RESULTS: A total of 262 patients were included in the analysis with a response rate of 96.7%. A total of 66 patients completed the test-retest after 1 month. EFA supported a three-factor model resulting from the combination of the regimen distress (RD) and interpersonal distress (IPD) subscales; and with a swapping of an item between emotional burden (EB; item 7) and RD (item 3) subscales. Cronbach's α for MDDS-17 was 0.94, the combined RD and IPD subscale was 0.925, the EB subscale was 0.855 and the physician-related distress was 0.823. The test- retest reliability's correlation coefficient was r = 0.29 (n = 66; p = 0.009). There was a significant association between the mean MDDS-17 item score categories (<3 vs ≥3) and HbA1c categories (<7.0% vs ≥7.0%), and medication adherence (medium and high vs ≥low). The instrument discriminated between those having diabetes-related complication, low quality of life, poor medication adherence and depression.
CONCLUSION: The MDDS-17 has satisfactory psychometric properties. It can be used to map diabetes-related emotional distress for diagnostic or clinical use.
MeSH terms: Adult; Ambulatory Care Facilities; Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2; Female; Humans; Malaysia; Male; Psychometrics; Reproducibility of Results; Validation Studies
INTRODUCTION: Hill-Bone compliance to high blood pressure therapy scale (HBTS) is one of the useful scales in primary care settings. It has been tested in America, Africa and Turkey with variable validity and reliability. The aim of this paper was to determine the validity and reliability of the Malay version of HBTS (HBTS-M) for the Malaysian population.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: HBTS comprises three subscales assessing compliance to medication, appointment and salt intake. The content validity of HBTS to the local population was agreed through consensus of expert panel. The 14 items used in the HBTS were adapted to reflect the local situations. It was translated into Malay and then back-translated into English. The translated version was piloted in 30 participants. This was followed by structural and predictive validity, and internal consistency testing in 262 patients with hypertension, who were on antihypertensive agent(s) for at least 1 year in two primary healthcare clinics in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Exploratory factor analyses and the correlation between HBTS-M total score and blood pressure were performed. The Cronbach's alpha was calculated accordingly.
RESULTS: Factor analysis revealed a three-component structure represented by two components on medication adherence and one on salt intake adherence. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin statistic was 0.764. The variance explained by each factors were 23.6%, 10.4% and 9.8%, respectively. However, the internal consistency for each component was suboptimal with Cronbach's alpha of 0.64, 0.55 and 0.29, respectively. Although there were two components representing medication adherence, the theoretical concepts underlying each concept cannot be differentiated. In addition, there was no correlation between the HBTS-M total score and blood pressure.
CONCLUSION: HBTS-M did not conform to the structural and predictive validity of the original scale. Its reliability on assessing medication and salt intake adherence would most probably to be suboptimal in the Malaysian primary care setting.
MeSH terms: Adult; Ambulatory Care Facilities; Blood Pressure; Humans; Hypertension; Malaysia; Psychometrics; Reproducibility of Results; Medication Adherence
Juvenile recurrent respiratory papillomatosis (JRRP) is a rare condition. The varied presentation of this condition predisposes to misdiagnosis and potential life-threatening airway obstruction. In this paper, we have reported a case of JRRP presenting as severe respiratory distress and consequently mistreated as asthmatic attack culminating in a near fatal acute airway obstruction.
Dengue infection is highly endemic in many tropical countries including Malaysia. However, neurological complications arising from dengue infection is not common; Gullain-Barre syndrome (GBS) is one of these infrequent complications. In this paper, we have reported a case in which a 39-year-old woman presented with a neurological complication of dengue infection without typical symptoms and signs of dengue fever. She had a history of acute gastroenteritis (AGE) followed by an upper respiratory tract infection (URTI) weeks prior to her presentation rendering GBS secondary to the post viral URTI and AGE as the most likely diagnosis. Presence of thrombocytopenia was the only clue for dengue in this case.
Discharging ear is a common symptom in the primary care and private general clinics. Most of the cases are treated with the antibiotic ear drops for otitis externa or otitis media. However, despite an adequate standard therapy, a malignant tumour can also be present with non-specific symptom such as ear discharge, especially in the case of persistent ear discharge. In this paper we have reported a case of an adult woman presented with non-resolving ear discharge who was treated repeatedly with antibiotic ear drop, which was later diagnosed as squamous cell carcinoma.
MeSH terms: Adult; Anti-Bacterial Agents; Carcinoma, Squamous Cell; Female; Humans; Malaysia; Otitis Externa; Otitis Media; Primary Health Care
Bertolotti's syndrome must be considered as a differential diagnosis for lower back pain in young people. Treatment, whether conservative or operative, is still debatable. In this paper, we report a case of a 20-year-old girl presenting with lower back pain for 8 years. We administered injection with local anaesthetic and steroid injections within the pseudo-articulation; however, the pain was relieved for 3 weeks. Surgical excision of the pseudo-articulation successfully treated her back pain and the sciatica.
MeSH terms: Adult; Anesthesia, Local; Anesthetics, Local; Back Pain; Diagnosis, Differential; Female; Humans; Sciatica; Spinal Diseases; Low Back Pain; Young Adult
We describe and compare the availability and accessibility of administrative healthcare databases (AHDB) in several Asia-Pacific countries: Australia, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, China, Thailand, and Malaysia.
Oil palm phenolics (OPP) or Palm Juice (PJ), a water soluble extract from the palm fruit (Elaies guineensis) has been documented to have anti-carcinogenic activities in various cancer types.
Lignosus rhinocerotis (Cooke) Ryvarden (Polyporales, Basidiomycota), also known as the tiger milk mushroom, has received much interest in recent years owing to its wide-range ethnobotanical uses and the recent success in its domestication. The sclerotium is the part with medicinal value. Using two-dimensional gel electrophoresis coupled with mass spectrometry analysis, a total of 16 non-redundant, major proteins were identified with high confidence level in L. rhinocerotis sclerotium based on its genome as custom mapping database. Some of these proteins, such as the putative lectins, immunomodulatory proteins, superoxide dismutase, and aegerolysin may have pharmaceutical potential; while others are involved in nutrient mobilization and the protective antioxidant mechanism in the sclerotium. The findings from this study provide a molecular basis for future research on potential pharmacologically active proteins of L. rhinocerotis.
Azolium (imidazolium and benzimidazolium) salts are known as stable precursors for the synthesis of Metal-N-Heterocyclic Carbene (M-NHC) complexes. Recently, some reports have been compiled indicating that benzimidazolium salts have anticarcinogenic properties. The current research is the further investigation of this phenomenon. Three ortho-xylene linked bis-benzimidazolium salts (1-3) with octyl, nonyl and decyl terminal chain lengths have been synthesized. Each of the compounds was characterized using FT-IR and NMR spectroscopic techniques. The molecular geometries of two of the salts (1-2) have been established using X-ray crystallographic technique. The compounds were tested for their cytotoxic properties against three cancerous cell lines namely, human colon cancer (HCT 116), human colorectal adenocarcinoma (HT- 29) and human breast adenocarcinoma (MCF-7). Mouse embryonic fibroblast (3T3-L1) was used as the model cell line of normal cells. The compounds showed selective anti-proliferative activities against the colorectal carcinoma cells. For HCT 116 and HT-29 cells, the IC50 values ranged 0.9-2.6 µM and 4.0-10.0 µM, respectively. The salts 1 and 3 displayed moderate cytotoxicity against the breast cancer (MCF-7) cells with IC50 58.2 and 13.3 µM, respectively. However, the salt 2 produced strong cytotoxicity against MCF-7 cells with IC50 4.4 µM. Interestingly, the compounds demonstrated poor cytotoxic effects towards the normal cells (3T3-L1) as the IC50 was found to be as high as 48.0 µM. Salts 2 and 3 demonstrated more pronounced anti-proliferative effect than the standard drugs used (5-Flourouracil and Tamoxifen).
Simple and effective high performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) method was developed for estimation of Clindipine in drug free human drug free blank plasma. The internal standard used as Nifidipine (IS). The current method was used protein precipitating extraction of Clindipine from blank plasma. Separation was achieved on reversed-phase c18 column (25cm × 4.6mm, 5μ) and the detection was monitored by UV detector at 260 nm. The optimized mobile phase was used acetonitrile: 5mM potassium dihydrogen orthophosphate (pH 4.5), in the ratio of 60:40% v/v at a flow rate of 1.0 ml/min. This linearity was achieved in this method range of 10.0-125.0 ng/ml with regression coefficient range is 0.99. The present method is suitable in terms of precise, accurate and specific during the study. The simplicity of the method allows for application in laboratories that lack sophisticated analytical instruments such as LC-MS/MS or GC-MS/MS that are complicated, costly and time consuming rather than a simple HPLC-UV method. The present method was successfully applied for pharmacokinetic studies.
MeSH terms: Antihypertensive Agents/blood*; Antihypertensive Agents/pharmacokinetics; Calcium Channel Blockers/blood*; Calcium Channel Blockers/pharmacokinetics; Calibration; Dihydropyridines/blood*; Dihydropyridines/pharmacokinetics; Drug Stability; Humans; Reference Standards; Spectrophotometry, Ultraviolet; Reproducibility of Results; Linear Models
Vernonia amygdalina is a strong natural antioxidant that possessed various medicinal properties. In this study, the spray-dried water extract of V. amygdalina was evaluated for its in vitro antioxidant capacity and in vivo hepatoprotective effect against alcoholic-mediated liver damage. Total phenolic and flavonoid content of spray-dried V. amygdalina water extract were determined. Liver enzyme profiles, liver antioxidant level and nitric oxide level were evaluated in alcohol-induced liver injured mice or co-supplement with spray-dried V. amydalina. Water extract of spray-dried V. amygalina that contained phenolic content of 24.8±1.5 mg/g gallic acid equivalent and total flavonoid content of 25.7±1.3 mg/g catechin equivalent was able to inhibit 50% of xanthine and tyrosinase oxidation at 170 μg/ml and 2 mg/mL, respectively. On the other hand, extracts at both 10 and 50 mg/kg body weight were able to reduce the levels of Alanine transaminase (ALT), Alkaline phosphatase (ALP), Aspartate transaminase (AST), triglyceride and total bilirubin content inthe alcohol-mediated liver injury in mice. Furthermore, it also helped to increase levels of Superoxide dismutase (SOD), Ferric reducing ability of plasma (FRAP) and reduce the levels of Nitric oxide (NO) and Malondialdehyde (MDA) in the liver of the treated mice. These resultssuggestedthat water extract of spray-dried V. amygdalina exhibited liver protective effect, which could be contributed by its antioxidant properties.
Nutritional quality and antioxidant capacity of three edible wild berries (Rubus ellipticus Smith, Rubus niveus Thunb, Rubus ulmifolius L.) from Lesser Himalayan Range (LHR) were evaluated. Their edible portion was assayed for moisture, fats, ash, carbohydrates, proteins, fibers, essential minerals (Ca, P, Mg, K, Na, Cl, S, Mn, Zn, Fe, Cu, Se, Co, Ni) and DPPH free radical scavenging activity was applied to determine the antioxidant potential. The fruit of Rubus ulmifolius L. (blackberry) possessed the highest values of energy (403.29 Kcal), total protein (6.56g/100 g), Nitrogen (N) content (1500mg/100g), K (860.17mg/100g), Ca (620.56mg/100g), Zn (17.509mg/100g) and the strongest antioxidant activity (98.89% inhibition). While the raspberries (Rubus ellipticus Smith, Rubus niveus Thunb.) exhibited more significant contents of dietary fiber (5.90g/100g), carbohydrates (86.4 g/100 g) and Fe (4.249mg/100g). Significant variation was observed among the tested samples in all the investigated features. The combination of bio elements and active antioxidants clearly showed the applicability of these berries as a nutraceutical supplement.
Backcross breeding is the most commonly used method for incorporating a blast resistance gene into a rice cultivar. Linkage between the resistance gene and undesirable units can persist for many generations of backcrossing. Marker-assisted backcrossing (MABC) along with marker-assisted selection (MAS) contributes immensely to overcome the main limitation of the conventional breeding and accelerates recurrent parent genome (RPG) recovery. The MABC approach was employed to incorporate (a) blast resistance gene(s) from the donor parent Pongsu Seribu 1, the blast-resistant local variety in Malaysia, into the genetic background of MR219, a popular high-yielding rice variety that is blast susceptible, to develop a blast-resistant MR219 improved variety. In this perspective, the recurrent parent genome recovery was analyzed in early generations of backcrossing using simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers. Out of 375 SSR markers, 70 markers were found polymorphic between the parents, and these markers were used to evaluate the plants in subsequent generations. Background analysis revealed that the extent of RPG recovery ranged from 75.40% to 91.3% and from 80.40% to 96.70% in BC1F1 and BC2F1 generations, respectively. In this study, the recurrent parent genome content in the selected BC2F2 lines ranged from 92.7% to 97.7%. The average proportion of the recurrent parent in the selected improved line was 95.98%. MAS allowed identification of the plants that are more similar to the recurrent parent for the loci evaluated in backcross generations. The application of MAS with the MABC breeding program accelerated the recovery of the RP genome, reducing the number of generations and the time for incorporating resistance against rice blast.
In this paper, a linear relationship is proposed relating the natural logarithm of partition coefficient, ln K for protein partitioning in poly (ethylene glycol) (PEG)-phosphate aqueous two-phase system (ATPS) to the square of tie-line length (TLL(2)). This relationship provides good fits (r(2) > 0.98) to the partition of bovine serum albumin (BSA) in PEG (1450 g/mol, 2000 g/mol, 3350 g/mol, and 4000 g/mol)-phosphate ATPS with TLL of 25.0-50.0% (w/w) at pH 7.0. Results also showed that the plot of ln K against pH for BSA partitioning in the ATPS containing 33.0% (w/w) PEG1450 and 8.0% (w/w) phosphate with varied working pH between 6.0 and 9.0 exhibited a linear relationship which is in good agreement (r(2) = 0.94) with the proposed relationship, ln K = α' pH + β'. These results suggested that both the relationships proposed could be applied to correlate and elucidate the partition behavior of biomolecules in the polymer-salt ATPS. The influence of other system parameters on the partition behavior of BSA was also investigated. An optimum BSA yield of 90.80% in the top phase and K of 2.40 was achieved in an ATPS constituted with 33.0% (w/w) PEG 1450 and 8.0% (w/w) phosphate in the presence of 8.5% (w/w) sodium chloride (NaCl) at pH 9.0 for 0.3% (w/w) BSA load.
The juice of the entire fresh herb and infusion of dried sample of Murdannia bracteata are consumed to treat liver cancer and diabetes in Malaysia. However, no scientific evidence of these bioactivities has been reported.
The bacterium strain SE31, a member of the genus Sciscionella, was isolated from intertidal sediments collected from Cape Rachado, Malaysia. The high quality draft genome sequence of Sciscionella strain SE31 with a genome size of approximately 7.4 Mbp is reported. Preliminary analysis revealed 46 putative gene clusters involved in the biosynthesis of secondary metabolites and 113 putative genes that are associated with bacterial virulence, disease and defense. Availability of the genome sequence of Sciscionella SE31 will contribute to a better understanding of the genus Sciscionella.