RESULTS: Mycobacterium smegmatis was used as a model organism to provide a proof of principle for a method to recover bacteria from a stained sample on a glass slide using a laser capture system. Ziehl-Neelsen (ZN) stained cells were excised and catapulted into tubes. Recovered cells were subjected to DNA extraction and pre-amplified with multiple displacement amplification (MDA). This system allowed a minimum of 30 catapulted cells to be detected following a nested real-time PCR assay, using rpoB specific primers. The combination of MDA and nested real-time PCR resulted in a 30-fold increase in sensitivity for the detection of low numbers of cells isolated using LCM.
CONCLUSIONS: This study highlights the potential of LCM coupled with MDA as a tool to improve the recovery of amplifiable nucleic acids from archived glass slides. The inclusion of the MDA step was essential to enable downstream amplification. This platform should be broadly applicable to a variety of diagnostic applications and we have used it as a proof of principle with a Mycobacterium sp. model system.
STUDY DESIGN: The present study was conducted on 151 women with gynecological cancers as the case group and 152 healthy women with no history of such cancers as control group. The dematographic details of participants from both control and case groups were collected using a checklist, and the pattern of their fingerprints was prepared and examined. The data were analyzed for their significance using chi-square test and t- test. Odds ratio with 95% confidence intervals were calculated.
RESULTS: Dermatoglyphic analysis showed that arch and loop patterns significantly changed in cases group as compared to control. However, the odds ratio suggested that loop pattern in 6 or more fingers might be a risk factor for developing gynecological cancers.
CONCLUSION: Our results showed that there is an association between fingerprint patterns and gynecological cancers and so, dermatoglyphic analysis may aid in the early diagnosis of these cancers.
METHODS: Overall, 612 patients (306 COVID-19 and 306 non-COVID-19 pneumonia) were recruited. Twenty radiological features were extracted from CT images to evaluate the pattern, location, and distribution of lesions of patients in both groups. All significant CT features were fed in five classifiers namely decision tree, K-nearest neighbor, naïve Bayes, support vector machine, and ensemble to evaluate the best performing CAD system in classifying COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 cases.
RESULTS: Location and distribution pattern of involvement, number of the lesion, ground-glass opacity (GGO) and crazy-paving, consolidation, reticular, bronchial wall thickening, nodule, air bronchogram, cavity, pleural effusion, pleural thickening, and lymphadenopathy are the significant features to classify COVID-19 from non-COVID-19 groups. Our proposed CAD system obtained the sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of 0.965, 93.54%, 90.32%, and 91.94%, respectively, using ensemble (COVIDiag) classifier.
CONCLUSIONS: This study proposed a COVIDiag model obtained promising results using CT radiological routine features. It can be considered an adjunct tool by the radiologists during the current COVID-19 pandemic to make an accurate diagnosis.
KEY POINTS: • Location and distribution of involvement, number of lesions, GGO and crazy-paving, consolidation, reticular, bronchial wall thickening, nodule, air bronchogram, cavity, pleural effusion, pleural thickening, and lymphadenopathy are the significant features between COVID-19 from non-COVID-19 groups. • The proposed CAD system, COVIDiag, could diagnose COVID-19 pneumonia cases with an AUC of 0.965 (sensitivity = 93.54%; specificity = 90.32%; and accuracy = 91.94%). • The AUC, sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy obtained by radiologist diagnosis are 0.879, 87.10%, 88.71%, and 87.90%, respectively.
OBJECTIVE: This review aims to evaluate the 13C-UBT diagnostic accuracy studies conducted among Asian population and validate its use for the Asian population.
METHODS: Original articles were systematically searched in PubMed, Scopus, and Google Scholar using the PICOS strategy by applying relevant keywords. Only studies published in English and conducted in Asia were included. Our search returned 276 articles. After assessment, 11 articles which answered our research question and met the criteria set for systematic review and meta-analysis were accepted. A total of 15 study protocols were extracted from the 11 accepted articles.
FINDINGS: Majority of the studies were conducted in Hong Kong (six), followed by Taiwan (five), Japan (two), and one each in Singapore and Israel. All studies had used histology as part of its gold standard of reference. All but one study was performed on adult populations. The summary estimate for sensitivity was 97% (95% CI: 96, 98%), and specificity was 96% (95% CI: 95, 97%), with significant heterogeneity between studies. Adjusting for the dose (50 mg) and breath sample collection time (20 minutes) had improved both accuracy estimates and significantly reduced heterogeneity.
CONCLUSION: This review supports the test-and-treat strategy for H. pylori infection management. Prevalence and cost-effectiveness studies are mandatory for health authorities to adopt this strategy into national policy.