Search

The presence of activating mutations in the EGFR gene influences cell proliferation, angiogenesis, and increases metastatic ability; it has a significant impact on the choice of medical therapy of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The use of targeted therapy with tyrosine kinase inhibitors requires performance of appropriate genetic tests. The aim of this study was to design a real-time PCR-based diagnostic kit for fast and cheap of EGFR mutations testing in paraffin blocks and plasma, and kit validation using samples from patients with NSCLC, and also comparative estimation of diagnostic features of real-time PCR with wild type blocking and digital PCR for mutation testing in blood plasma. The study included 156 patients with various types of adenocarcinoma differentiation. It was designed a simple and efficient real-time PCR-based method of detecting L858R activating mutation and del19 deletion in the EGFR gene for DNA isolated from paraffin blocks. Kit for EGFR mutations was validated using 411 samples of paraffin blocks. The proposed system showed high efficiency for DNA testing from paraffin blocks: a concordance with results of testing with therascreen® EGFR RGQ PCR Kit ("Qiagen", Germany) was 100%. It has been shown the possibility of using this test system for the detection of mutations in plasma.

Objectives: To objectively characterize phenome-wide associations observed in the entire Taiwanese population and represent them in a meaningful, interpretable way., Study Design: In this population-based observational study, we analyzed 782 million outpatient visits and 15 394 unique phenotypes that were observed in the entire Taiwanese population of over 22 million individuals. Our data was obtained from Taiwan's National Health Insurance Research Database.Results We stratified the population into 20 gender-age groups and generated 28.8 million and 31.8 million pairwise odds ratios from male and female subpopulations, respectively. These associations can be accessed online at http://associations.phr.tmu.edu.tw. To demonstrate the database and validate the association estimates obtained, we used correlation analysis to analyze 100 phenotypes that were observed to have the strongest positive association estimates with respect to essential hypertension. The results indicated that association patterns tended to have a strong positive correlation between adjacent age groups, while correlation estimates tended to decline as groups became more distant in age, and they diverged when assessed across gender groups., Conclusions: The correlation analysis of pairwise disease association patterns across different age and gender groups led to outcomes that were broadly predicted before the analysis, thus confirming the validity of the information contained in the presented database. More diverse individual disease-specific analyses would lead to a better understanding of phenome-wide associations and empower physicians to provide personalized care in terms of predicting, preventing, or initiating an early management of concomitant diseases., (© The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Medical Informatics Association. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.)

An easy-to-use method for quantitative analysis of bacterial exopolysaccharides (EPS) was developed. The acid treatment was resultant in removing proteins and lactose and allowed to avoid long-term operation as dialysis. It was shown that, as opposed to anthron and phenol-sulphuric acid methods, reducing sugars method after EPS hydrolysis with glucose as standard provided reliable results, no matter to the EPS monosaccharide composition. EPS quantity in kefir of different brands was varied greatly, approximately at 50-200 mg/l, showing potential to enhance kefiran production by alteration of technological process. The temperature optimum for EPS production by kefir grains and kefir starter was about 30 °C, while the rise of temperature increased soluble EPS in culturing media by means of extraction from kefir grain body., (Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

The authors analyse the results of surgical treatment of 254 children with various diseases of the thyroid and follow-up periods of 12 months to 20 years. They recommend the optimal time for and the volume of the operative intervention according to the form of the goiter and the children's age. The causes of the development of postoperative hypothyroidism and a recurrence of thyroid diseases in childhood are discussed and the measures for their prevention are indicated.

The results of surgical treatment of various forms of diseases of the thyroid gland in 254 children are analysed in follow-up periods of 12 months to 20 years. Functional compensation of the thyroid occurred in all patients with nodular forms of goiter who were subjected to operation which did not exceed hemithyroidectomy in volume. The analysis showed that operative treatment of children with the diffuse toxic form of goiter attended by the autoimmune component lead to hypothyroidism in 76.6% of patients, whatever the activity of the thyroid tissue, and a recurrence developed in 11.7% of those who were operated on. In children without the autoimmune component postoperative hypothyroidism was found in 48.6% of those examined, a recurrence was found in 3.2% of cases. The indications for operative treatment are specified, measures for the prevention of postoperative complications are listed.