Food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) is a practical tool for the measurement of usual food intake in large surveys because it gives a quick approximation to 'true' dietary intake. This study was carried out to compare the semiquantitative FFQ with three day 24-hour diet recalls (24-hr DR) in assessing intake of energy, total fat, fatty acids and vitamin A, C and E among Malaysian women. This semi-quantitative FFQ which was developed specifically for the Malay and Indian ethnicities has 200 food items and categorized according to three mealtimes namely breakfast, lunch or dinner and morning or afternoon snacks. A total of 51 Malay and 28 Indian women aged between 30 to 60 years were selected as study subjects. The result of the study shows that majority of study subjects were within the normal EI/BMR ratio when their energy intake was assessed by semi-quantitative FFQ (70%) and 24-hr DR (74%). However, 10% of study subjects became over-reporters when their intakes were assessed using the semi-quantitative FFQ. Analysis of t-test shows there is no significant difference (p > 0.05) on the mean intake of energy, total fats, saturated, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids and vitamin A, C and E between semi-quantitative FFQ and 24-hr DR. Percent mean differences were also less than 10% for all nutrients included in this study. This indicates that the semi-quantitative FFQ can produce comparable results with 24-hr DR. Energy adjusted correlation coefficient values for all studied nutrients were total fat (r = 0.64, p = 0.02), saturated fatty acids (r = 0.59, p = 0.01), monounsaturated fatty acids (r = 0.52, p = 0.03), polyunsaturated fatty acids (r = 0.57, p = 0.02), vitamin A (r = 0.69, p = 0.01), retinol (r = 0.55, p = 0.01), beta carotene (r = 0.74, p = 0.01), vitamin C (r = 0.64, p = 0.02) and vitamin E (r = 0.69, p = 0.01). Cross-classification for both methods into quartiles of intake resulted in correct classification into the same or adjacent quartile from 82% to 96% of the study subjects. Only 3% of the subjects were grossly misclassified. As a conclusion, this semi-quantitative FFQ gives estimation as good as 24-hr DR for intakes of energy, total fat, fatty acids and vitamin A, C and E among Malaysian women specifically for the Malay and Indian ethnicities. This semi-quantitative FFQ is a useful tool in dietary intake assessment for research use especially for epidemiological study on diet and disease relationship such as cardiovascular, cancer and diabetes.
The patella is an uncommon site for all primary and metastatic bone tumours and primary intra-osseous tumours of the patella are very rare. A majority of the patella tumours are benign. We report a patient with a sudden onset swelling and pain of the right knee following a staircase fall. The plain radiograph showed an expansile multiseptated patella lesion and it was further assessed with an MRI. The radiological findings and the initial histopathological features from a limited sample were suggestive of a primary aneurysmal bone cyst. However, the final histopathological diagnosis from a more adequate specimen was a giant cell tumour with a secondary aneurysmal bone cyst.
The traditional classification of infiltrating breast carcinomas into ductal and lobular can be diagnostically challenging in a small proportion of cases with equivocal histological features and in in-situ lesions with overlapping features. Distinguishing between the infiltrating ductal (IDC) and lobular (ILC) carcinomas is clinically important because of the different pattern of systemic metastases and prognostic evaluation. E-cadherin is a potentially useful immunohistochemical marker which may serve to differentiate between the two tumour types. We therefore studied E-cadherin expression in 32 cases of breast carcinomas comprising 16 IDCs and 16 ILCs. The correlation between E-cadherin expression and the histological grade of IDCs was also analysed. Our results showed complete loss of E-cadherin expression in all ILCs, while the IDCs consistently showed variable E-cadherin positivity. No significant correlation was found between E- cadherin expression and the histological grade of IDCs. We conclude from this study that E-cadherin is a useful marker to differentiate between IDC and ILC of the breast. A larger study of IDCs is now needed to further evaluate the correlation between E-cadherin and tumour grade to estimate its prognostic potential.
Extragonadal teratomas and germ cell tumours are uncommon. Most teratomas of the head and neck present in the paediatric age group. Occurrence of such tumours in an adult is extremely rare and, to date, less than 40 cases have been reported in the literature. We report a case of a young man presenting with impending airway obstruction secondary to a malignant teratoma of the neck.
The incidence of breast cancer has been on the rise in Malaysia. It is suggested that a subset of breast cancer cases were associated with germline mutation in breast cancer susceptibility (BRCA) genes. Most of the BRCA mutations reported in Malaysia were point mutations, small deletions and insertions. Here we report the first study of BRCA large genomic rearrangements (LGRs) in Malaysia. We aimed to detect the presence of LGRs in the BRCA genes of Malaysian patients with breast cancer.