STUDY DESIGN: Eighty-six postnasal biopsy samples and 71 fine-needle aspirate samples of neck masses were obtained from patients who were clinically suspect for NPC. Genomic DNA was extracted from the samples, and EBNA1, EBNA2, and LMP genes of EBV were detected by PCR. PCR results were compared with NPC histopathology findings.
RESULTS: The sensitivity of PCR to detect EBNA1 (97.14%), EBNA2 (88.57%), and LMP (91.43%) genes of EBV in nasopharyngeal biopsy samples were higher than those in fine-needle aspirate samples.
CONCLUSION: Detection of EBV by PCR in tissue obtained from nasopharyngeal biopsy and fine-needle aspirate samples of neck masses is a relatively inexpensive, reliable, and accurate method of diagnosing NPC. Detection of EBV genes is on par with histopathological examination (HPE) and superior to fine-needle aspirate cytology.
SIGNIFICANCE: PCR is an ideal tool for suggesting NPC and guiding the diagnostic workup in occult primary tumors, facilitating earlier diagnosis and reducing morbidity and mortality.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: The national MPN registry conducted from 2009 to 2015 in Malaysia provided a comprehensive insight into the demographics, clinical characteristics and laboratory parameters of patients diagnosed with MPN nationwide. The study analysed the survival patterns and mortality outcomes and risk among 671 patients diagnosed with essential thrombocythaemia (ET), polycythaemia vera (PV), primary myelofibrosis (PMF) and unclassified MPN (MPN-U). Mortality status was traced and confirmed until the end of December 2018, with right censoring applied to patients alive beyond that.
RESULTS: The analysed cohort consisted of 283 (42.2%) ET, 269 (40.1%) PV, 62 (9.2%) PMF and 57 (8.5%) MPN-U incident cases with diagnosis made between 2007 and 2015. The majority of patients were male (52.3%) and Malay (48.9%), except for ET, in which the majority of patients were female (60.1%) and of Chinese origin (47.0%). Female patients were found to have significantly better overall survival (OS) rates in ET (p = 0.0285) and MPN-U (p = 0.0070). Patients with JAK2 V617F mutation were found to have marginally inferior OS over time. Multivariable Cox regression identified patients with increased age [hazard ratio (HR) 1.055, 95% CI 1.031; 1.064], reduced haemoglobin (HB) level (HR 0.886, 95% CI 0.831; 0.945, p = 0.0002), being male (HR 1.545, 95% CI 1.077; 2.217, p = 0.0182), and having MPN-U (HR 2.383, 95% CI 1.261; 4.503, p = 0.0075) and PMF (HR 1.975, 95% CI 1.054; 3.701, p = 0.0335) at increased risk for worse mortality outcomes.
CONCLUSION: Myeloproliferative neoplasm reduces patient survival. The degree of impact on survival varies according to sub-type, sex, bone marrow fibrosis and HB levels. The JAK2 V617F mutation was not found to affect the survival pattern or mortality outcome significantly.
METHODS: The questionnaire was distributed physically and digitally to non-OGS users aged above 60, living in the Klang Valley, Malaysia, using a non-probability sampling approach. A total of 302 data were analysed using PLS structural equation modelling.
RESULTS: The findings indicate that perceived ease of use, functional ability, life-course events, and digital literacy are associated with the elderly's perception of OGS's usefulness, while life-course events, digital literacy, technology anxiety, and facilitating conditions are associated with the perceived ease of use.
CONCLUSION: This study contributes to the OGS literature by addressing ageing complexities with OGS adoption among the elderly population, thereby offering insights for marketers and the government to tailor services and provide relevant support.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: We selected 157 NPC cases and 136 controls from two hospitals in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for this study. The polymorphisms studied were genotyped by PCR-RFLP assay and allele and genotype frequencies, haplotype and linkage disequilibrium were determined using SNPstat software.
RESULTS: For the XPD Lys751Gln polymorphism, the frequency of the Lys allele was higher in cases than in controls (94.5% versus 85.0%). For the XRCC1 Arg280His polymorphism, the frequency of Arg allele was 90.0% and 89.0% in cases and controls, respectively and for XRCC1 Arg399Gln the frequency of the Arg allele was 72.0% and 72.8% in cases and controls respectively. All three polymorphisms were in linkage disequilibrium. The odds ratio from haplotype analysis for these three polymorphisms and their association with NPC was 1.93 (95%CI: 0.90-4.16) for haplotype CGC vs AGC allele combinations. The global haplotype association with NPC gave a p-value of 0.054.
CONCLUSIONS: Our study provides an estimate of allele and genotype frequencies of XRCC1Arg280His, XRCC1 Arg399Gln and XPD Lys751Gln polymorphisms in the Malaysian population and showed no association with nasopharyngeal cancer.
METHODS: Restriction fragment length polymorphism-polymerase chain reaction (RFLP-PCR) was used to genotype all the aforementioned gene polymorphisms. Kaplan-Meier survival function, log-rank test and Cox regression were used to investigate the effect of gene polymorphisms on the all-cause survival of NPC.
RESULTS: NPC cases carrying T/T genotype of ITGA2 C807T have poorer all-cause survival compared to those with C/C genotypes, with an adjusted HR of 2.06 (95% CI = 1.14-3.72) in individual model. The 5-year survival rate of C/C carriers was 55% compared to those with C/T and T/T where the survival rates were 50% and 43%, respectively.
CONCLUSION: The finding from the present study showed that ITGA2 C807T polymorphism could be potentially useful as a prognostic biomarker for NPC. However, the prognostic value of ITGA2 C807T polymorphism has to be validated by well-designed further studies with larger patient numbers.
Methods: This was a retrospective epidemiological study involving all cases of TMA from 2012-2016.
Results: We evaluated 243 patients with a median age of 34.2 years; 57.6% were female. Majority of the patients were Malay (62.5%), followed by Chinese (23.5%) and Indian (8.6%). The proportion of patients with thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP) was 20.9%, 72.2% of which were acquired while 27.8% were congenital. Patients with ADAMTS-13 activity ≥5% had a four-fold higher odds of mortality compared to those with ADAMTS-13 activity <5% (odds ratio: 4.133, P=0.0425). The mortality rate was 22.6% (N=55). Most cases had secondary etiologies (42.5%), followed by acquired TTP (16.6%), atypical hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) or HUS (12.8%) and congenital TTP (6.4%). Patients with secondary TMA had inferior overall survival (P=0.0387). The secondary causes comprised systemic lupus erythematosus (30%), infection (29%), pregnancy (10%), transplant (8%), malignancy (6%), and drugs (3%). Transplant-associated TMA had the worst OS (P=0.0016) among the secondary causes. Plasma exchange, methylprednisolone and intravenous immunoglobulin were recorded as first-line treatments in 162 patients, while rituximab, bortezomib, vincristine, azathioprine, cyclophosphamide, cyclosporine, and tacrolimus were described in 78 patients as second-line treatment.
Conclusion: This study showed that TMA without ADAMTS-13 deficiency yielded inferior outcomes compared to TMA with severeADAMTS-13 deficiency, although this difference was not statistically significant.
METHODS: We conducted a 1 to N case-control study involving 300 nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) cases and 533 controls matched by age, gender and ethnicity to investigate the effect of hOGG1 Ser326Cys, ITGA2 C807T and XPD Lys751Gln polymorphisms on NPC risk. Linkage disequilibrium and haplotype analysis were conducted to explore the association of allele combinations with NPC risk. Restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP-PCR) was used for DNA genotyping.
RESULTS: No significant association was observed between hOGG1 Ser326Cys and ITGA2 C807T polymorphisms with NPC risk after adjustment for age, gender, ethnicity, cigarette smoking, alcohol and salted fish consumption. Lys/Lys genotype of XPD Lys751Gln polymorphism was associated with increased NPC risk (OR = 1.60, 95% CI = 1.06-2.43). Subjects with history of smoking (OR = 1.81, 95% CI = 1.26-2.60), and salted fish consumption before age of 10 (OR = 1.77, 95% CI = 1.30-2.42) were observed to have increased odds of NPC. The odds of developing NPC of CGC haplotype was significantly higher compared to reference AGC haplotype (OR = 2.20, 95% CI = 1.06-4.58).
CONCLUSION: The allele combination of CGC from hOGG1, ITGA2 and XPD polymorphisms was significantly associated with increased odds of NPC.