This study evaluated the effectiveness of vocal hygiene education with resonant voice therapy for school-aged children with vocal nodules.
A pre-test/post-test control group design was employed.
...Seventeen children aged between 6 and 9 years old with vocal nodules were randomly assigned to three groups: a treatment group, a placebo group and a control group. Children in the treatment group (n = 7) received six consecutive, weekly, one-hour sessions of vocal hygiene education with resonant voice therapy. Children in the placebo group (n = 5) received six consecutive, weekly, one-hour sessions on presentation skills training. Children in the control group (n = 5) did not receive any form of treatment. Subjective outcome measures included auditory-perceptual evaluation of overall dysphonia severity, the Pediatric Voice Handicap Index (pVHI) and the Children's Voice Handicap Index-10 (CVHI-10). Objective outcome measures included acoustic analysis of fundamental frequency, jitter, shimmer and noise-to-harmonic ratio.
Significant improvements in perceptual ratings of overall dysphonia severity levels and pVHI scores were found in the treatment group. No significant changes in acoustic measures and CVHI-10 scores were noted in any of the three groups. Interestingly, an improvement in perceptual overall dysphonia severity levels at post-evaluation was observed in the no treatment control group.
Over 90% of cancer-related deaths in clear cell renal cell carcinoma (RCC) are caused by tumor relapse and metastasis. Thus, there is an urgent need for new molecular markers that can potentiate the ...efficacy of the current clinical-based models of prognosis assessment. The objective of this study is to evaluate the potential significance of lactate dehydrogenase A (LDHA), assessed by immunohistochemical staining, as a prognostic marker in clear cell renal cell carcinoma in relation to clinicopathological features and clinical outcome.
We assessed the expression of LDHA at the protein level, by immunohistochemistry, and correlated its expression with multiple clinicopathological features including tumor size, clinical stage, histological grade, disease-free and overall survival in 385 patients with primary clear cell renal cell carcinoma. We also correlated the LDHA expression with overall survival, at mRNA level, in an independent data set of 170 clear cell renal cell carcinoma cases from The Cancer Genome Atlas databases. Cox proportional hazards models adjusted for the potential clinicopathological factors were used to test for associations between the LDHA expression and both disease-free survival and overall survival.
There is statistically significant positive correlation between LDHA level of expression and tumor size, clinical stage and histological grade. Moreover, LDHA expression shows significantly inverse correlation with both disease-free survival and overall survival in patients with clear cell renal cell carcinoma. Our results are validated by examining LDHA expression, at the mRNA level, in the independent data set of clear cell renal cell carcinoma cases from The Cancer Genome Atlas databases which also shows that higher lactate dehydrogenase A expression is associated with significantly shorter overall survival.
Our results indicate that LDHA up-regulation can be a predictor of poor prognosis in clear cell renal cell carcinoma. Thus, it represents a potential prognostic biomarker that can boost the accuracy of other prognostic models in patients with clear cell renal cell carcinoma.
Swine influenza A viruses (SwIV) cause significant economic losses in animal husbandry as well as instances of human disease and occasionally give rise to human pandemics, including that caused by ...the H1N1/2009 virus. The lack of systematic and longitudinal influenza surveillance in pigs has hampered attempts to reconstruct the origins of this pandemic. Most existing swine data were derived from opportunistic samples collected from diseased pigs in disparate geographical regions, not from prospective studies in defined locations, hence the evolutionary and transmission dynamics of SwIV are poorly understood. Here we quantify the epidemiological, genetic and antigenic dynamics of SwIV in Hong Kong using a data set of more than 650 SwIV isolates and more than 800 swine sera from 12 years of systematic surveillance in this region, supplemented with data stretching back 34 years. Intercontinental virus movement has led to reassortment and lineage replacement, creating an antigenically and genetically diverse virus population whose dynamics are quantitatively different from those previously observed for human influenza viruses. Our findings indicate that increased antigenic drift is associated with reassortment events and offer insights into the emergence of influenza viruses with epidemic potential in swine and humans.
A total of 1,838 subjects from the community and 393 subjects from health care-related facilities in Taiwan were evaluated for the prevalence of nasal Staphylococcus aureus colonization and to ...identify risk factors associated with S. aureus and methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) colonization. Among the community subjects, 3.5% had nasal MRSA colonization. Subjects from health care-related facilities had a lower S. aureus colonization rate (19.1%) than community subjects (25.2%) but had a significantly higher rate of colonization with MRSA (7.63%). Age (P < 0.001) was a significant risk factor for S. aureus colonization, with subjects under age 20 years or between 71 and 80 years showing higher rates of colonization. Recent gastrointestinal disease (P = 0.011) and hospital admission (P = 0.026) were risk factors for nasal MRSA colonization. Comparison of hospital MRSA isolates with the colonization strains by staphylococcal cassette chromosome mec (SCCmec) gene typing and pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) typing revealed that most MRSA strains carried in the community were SCCmec type IV and that most clinical hospital isolates were type III, while health care facility-related carriage isolates were mainly SCCmec type III and type IV. Two new variant SCCmec types were identified. Six clusters of PFGE patterns were distinguished: two mainly comprised health care facility-related MRSA strains, three mainly comprised community MRSA strains, and one comprised mixed community and health care facility-related MRSA strains. In conclusion, a high prevalence of MRSA colonization was observed among people with no relationship to the hospital setting. The high level of multiple-drug resistance among community MRSA strains in association with the previously reported excessive use of antibiotics in Taiwan highlights the importance of the problem of antibiotic selective pressure. Our results indicate that both the clonal spread of MRSA and the transmission of hospital isolates contribute to the high MRSA burden in the community.
In the airways of those with cystic fibrosis (CF), the leading pathophysiological hypothesis is that an ion channel defect results in a relative decrease in airway surface liquid (ASL) volume, ...producing thick and sticky mucus that facilitates the establishment and progression of early fatal lung disease. This hypothesis predicts that any successful CF airway treatment for this fundamental channel defect should increase the ASL volume, but up until now there has been no method of measuring this volume that would be compatible with in vivo monitoring. In order to accurately monitor the volume of the ASL, we have developed a new x-ray phase contrast imaging method that utilizes a highly attenuating reference grid. In this study we used this imaging method to examine the effect of a current clinical CF treatment, aerosolized hypertonic saline, on ASL depth in ex vivo normal mouse tracheas, as the first step towards non-invasive in vivo ASL imaging. The ex vivo tracheas were treated with hypertonic saline, isotonic saline or no treatment using a nebuliser integrated within a small animal ventilator circuit. Those tracheas exposed to hypertonic saline showed a transient increase in the ASL depth, which continued for nine minutes post-treatment, before returning to baseline by twelve minutes. These findings are consistent with existing measurements on epithelial cell cultures, and therefore suggest promise for the future development of in vivo testing of treatments. Our grid-based imaging technique measures the ASL depth with micron resolution, and can directly observe the effect of treatments expected to increase ASL depth, prior to any changes in overall lung health. The ability to non-invasively observe micron changes in the airway surface, particularly if achieved in an in vivo setting, may have potential in pre-clinical research designed to bring new treatments for CF and other airway diseases to clinical trials.
Swine influenza in Sri Lanka Perera, Harsha K K; Wickramasinghe, Geethani; Cheung, Chung L ...
Emerging infectious diseases,
03/2013, Letnik:
19, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
To study influenza viruses in pigs in Sri Lanka, we examined samples from pigs at slaughterhouses. Influenza (H3N2) and A(H1N1)pdm09 viruses were prevalent during 2004-2005 and 2009-2012, ...respectively. Genetic and epidemiologic analyses of human and swine influenza viruses indicated 2 events of A(H1N1)pdm09 virus spillover from humans to pigs.
Computer keyboards and mice are potential reservoirs of nosocomial pathogens, but routine disinfection for non-water-proof computer devices is a problem. With better hand hygiene compliance of ...health-care workers (HCWs), the impact of these potential sources of contamination on clinical infection needs to be clarified.
This study was conducted in a 1600-bed medical center of southern Taiwan with 47 wards and 282 computers. With education and monitoring program of hand hygiene for HCWs, the average compliance rate was 74% before our surveillance. We investigated the association of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Acinetobacter baumannii, three leading hospital-acquired pathogens, from ward computer keyboards, mice and from clinical isolates in non-outbreak period by pulsed field gel electrophoresis and antibiogram.
Our results revealed a 17.4% (49/282) contamination rate of these computer devices by S. aureus, Acinetobacter spp. or Pseudomonas spp. The contamination rates of MRSA and A. baumannii in the ward computers were 1.1% and 4.3%, respectively. No P. aeruginosa was isolated. All isolates from computers and clinical specimens at the same ward showed different pulsotypes. However, A. baumannii isolates on two ward computers had the same pulsotype.
With good hand hygiene compliance, we found relatively low contamination rates of MRSA, P. aeruginosa and A. baumannii on ward computer interface, and without further contribution to nosocomial infection. Our results suggested no necessity of routine culture surveillance in non-outbreak situation.
To assess herd immunity to swine influenza viruses, we determined antibodies in 28 paired serum samples from participants in a prospective serologic cohort study in Hong Kong who had seroconverted to ...pandemic (H1N1) 2009 virus. Results indicated that infection with pandemic (H1N1) 2009 broadens cross-reactive immunity to other recent subtype H1 swine viruses.
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