Medicine
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Ulcerative colitis (UC) may severely limit patients' capacity to work. Recently, we validated a work disability questionnaire (WDQ) for Crohn disease. As UC shares clinical characteristics with Crohn disease, we hypothesized that the questionnaire might also be useful for UC. ⋯ Validation of the UC-WDQ included an assessment of its construct validity, including: discriminant validity, convergent validity, and reproducibility (test-retest). We also calculated the intraclass correlation and the Cronbach alpha. The UC-WDQ is a valid and reliable tool for measuring work disability in patients with UC.
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Case Reports
Multiple myeloma with pathologically proven skull plasmacytoma after a mild head injury: Case report.
MM is a malignant tumor originating from the plasma cells of the bone marrow. Central nervous system myelomatosis is very rare and may be a complication of MM. ⋯ Despite a history of head injury, a differential diagnosis should be kept in mind during the diagnosis of solid intracranial-extracranial masses, especially in the presence of osteolytic skull at the lesioned site.
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Observational Study
Matrix metalloproteinase-2 gene polymorphisms are associated with ischemic stroke in a Hainan population.
Ischemic stroke is a complex vascular disease, which has become 1 of the major causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide. More and more data showed that matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs), in particular, MMP-2 are deleterious after ischaemic stroke. This study investigated the relationship between MMP-2 and stroke risk in the Southern Chinese population. ⋯ For rs1132896 (C versus G allele), the C allele was significantly reduced stroke risk (OR = 0.56, 95% confidence intervals [95% CI] = 0.39-0.81, P = .002). The effect of the T allele of rs243849 was IS risk according to an additive genetic model (OR = 0.67, 95% CI = 0.47-0.96, P = .028). We did not found any strong linkage between the six SNPs (rs1132896, rs1053605, rs243849, rs243847, rs243832, rs7201)The results presented strongly indicate that MMP-2 genetic variants are an important mediator of stroke risk.
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Observational Study
Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring and diabetes complications: Targeting morning blood pressure surge and nocturnal dipping.
Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM) correlates more closely to organ damages than clinic blood pressure (BP). In the current study we aimed to investigate the association between micro- and macrovascular complications of diabetes and both diurnal and nocturnal variability in BP. A total of 192 patients with type 2 diabetes (T2DM) who had complete data on ABPM were selected. ⋯ We demonstrated that diabetic neuropathy was associated with all the components of MBPS and abnormal dipping status. Our results indicated loss of nocturnal BP dipping but not MBPS as a risk factor for CVD and retinopathy in patients with T2DM. Our findings once again highlighted the importance of ambulatory BP monitoring and targeted antihypertensive therapy directed toward to restore normal circadian BP in patients with T2DM.
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Exostosin-1 (EXT1) has been demonstrated to participate in the progression of many cancers. However, it has not been previously described in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) without vascular invasion. In this study, we got the accurate data of EXT1 mRNA Z-score from the CBio data portal of The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), which was used to express the level of EXT1 gene expression. ⋯ There was a significant positive correlation between EXT1 copy number and upregulated EXT1 gene (P < .0001). In conclusion, upregulation of EXT1 could be an important indicator to the short DFS of HCC patients without vascular invasion. EXT1 gene copy number amplification is one of the mechanisms underlying the upregulation of EXT1.