Assessment of Homocysteine as a Diagnostic and Early Prognostic Biomarker for Patients with Acute Lacunar Infarction

2017 ◽  
Vol 79 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 54-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Huimin Fan ◽  
Shuna Yang ◽  
Yue Li ◽  
Jiangmei Yin ◽  
Wei Qin ◽  
...  

Background: Although increasing evidence has demonstrated that elevated homocysteine (Hcy) levels may be an important contributor for the development of cerebral infarction, rare studies focused on its diagnostic and early prognostic roles in acute lacunar infarction. Methods: A total of 197 patients with acute lacunar infarction and 192 to form the control group were prospectively recruited between January 2013 and February 2017. Early neurological deterioration was defined as an increase of ≥2 points in National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale or the decrease in Barthel index (BI) score at discharge. Results: Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses revealed that higher levels of fibrinogen and Hcy were independently clinical predictors associated with lacunar infarction. Receiver operating characteristic curves analysis demonstrated that the diagnosis value of Hcy was superior to fibrinogen, with the area under the curve of 0.881 and 0.688 respectively. Using the optimal cutoff value of 15.5 μmol/L of Hcy, a sensitivity of 65% and a specificity of 100% were achieved for predicting lacunar infarction. Hcy was only significantly related with BI reduction in the males (30.5 [15.5–65.5] vs. 18 [15–24], p = 0.034) in the univariate analysis but not in the females and the multivariate analysis. Conclusions: Serum Hcy may be an independent diagnostic and not an early prognostic biomarker for patients with acute lacunar infarction.

Stroke ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 46 (suppl_1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kazuki Fukuma

Background and Purpose: Some patients with lacunar infarction show clinical neurological deterioration within few days after the onset. However factors associated with progressive lacunar stroke are unclear. The aim of this study was to identify the factors related to early neurological deterioration and recurrence in acute lacunar stroke. Methods: We studied 277 consecutive patients (173 men; mean age, 72 years) with a lacunar infarction admitted within 72 hours after the onset between Jan 2011 and Jul 2013. Progressive infarction (PI) was defined as an increase of ≥ 4 points in the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) score or recurrence of symptomatic ischemic stroke within 30 days after the onset. Associations between PI and patient characteristics, neuroimaging and acute treatments were evaluated. Results: Twenty-four of the 277 patients (8.7%) had PI, 21 patients (7.6%) presented with neurological deterioration and remaining 3 (1.1%) with symptomatic recurrence. In univariate analysis, an initial infarct extent of ≥15 mm was more frequent (P < 0.01), and age (P = 0.04), CRP (P = 0.05) and LDL-C (P = 0.04) were higher in patients with PI than those without. Early statin intervention (newly initiated statin, dose-escalation of pre-treated statin, or switching to strong statin) was significantly more frequent in patient without PI (41.9 vs 20.8%, P=0.04). Early dual antiplatelet or anticoagulant therapy was not associated with PI. In multivariate analysis, age [OR: 1.67 per 10 year; 95% CI: 1.07-2.70, p = 0.02], an initial infarct extent of ≥15 mm [OR: 5.26; 95% CI: 2.01-14.37, p < 0.01], LDL-C [OR: 1.25 per 10mg/dL; 95% CI: 1.09-1.46, p < 0.01], and statin intervention [OR: 0.22; 95% CI: 0.06-0.68, p < 0.01] were related to PI. Conclusion: Older Age, higher LDL-C and larger initial infarct extent were related to early neurological deterioration and recurrence in acute lacunar stroke. Further, early statin intervention can reduce the progressive lacunar stroke. Prospective randomized controlled trials are needed to determine whether the early statin intervention can prevent progression in acute lacunar stroke.


2020 ◽  
Vol 102-B (6) ◽  
pp. 749-754
Author(s):  
Hyoung-Seok Jung ◽  
Min J. Park ◽  
Yoo-Sun Won ◽  
Guen Y. Lee ◽  
Sujin Kim ◽  
...  

Aims The aim of this study was to analyze the association between the shape of the distal radius sigmoid notch and triangular fibrocartilage complex (TFCC) foveal tear. Methods Between 2013 and 2018, patients were retrospectively recruited in two different groups. The patient group comprised individuals who underwent arthroscopic transosseous TFCC foveal repair for foveal tear of the wrist. The control group comprised individuals presenting with various diseases around wrist not affecting the TFCC. The study recruited 176 patients (58 patients, 118 controls). The sigmoid notch shape was classified into four types (flat-face, C-, S-, and ski-slope types) and three radiological parameters related to the sigmoid notch (namely, the radius curvature, depth, and version angle) were measured. The association of radiological parameters and sigmoid notch types with the TFCC foveal tear was investigated in univariate and multivariate analyses. Receiver operating characteristic curves were used to estimate a cut-off for any statistically significant variables. Results Univariate analysis showed that the flat-face type was more prevalent in the patients than in the control group (43% vs 21%; p = 0.002), while the C-type was lower in the patients than in the control group (3% vs 17%; p = 0.011). The depth and version angle of sigmoid notch showed a negative association with the TFCC foveal tear in the multivariate analysis (depth: odds ratio (OR) 0.380; p = 0.037; version angle: OR 0.896; p = 0.033). Estimated cut-off values were 1.34 mm for the depth (area under the curve (AUC) = 0.725) and 10.45° for the version angle (AUC = 0.726). Conclusion The proportion of flat-face sigmoid notch type was greater in the patient group than in the control group. The depth and version angle of sigmoid notch were negatively associated with TFCC foveal injury. Cite this article: Bone Joint J 2020;102-B(6):749–754.


2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lei Xi ◽  
Chunqing Yang

AbstractObjectivesThe main aim of the present study was to assess the diagnostic value of alpha-l-fucosidase (AFU) for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).MethodsStudies that explored the diagnostic value of AFU in HCC were searched in EMBASE, SCI, and PUBMED. The sensitivity, specificity, and DOR about the accuracy of serum AFU in the diagnosis of HCC were pooled. The methodological quality of each article was evaluated with QUADAS-2 (quality assessment for studies of diagnostic accuracy 2). Receiver operating characteristic curves (ROC) analysis was performed. Statistical analysis was conducted by using Review Manager 5 and Open Meta-analyst.ResultsEighteen studies were selected in this study. The pooled estimates for AFU vs. α-fetoprotein (AFP) in the diagnosis of HCC in 18 studies were as follows: sensitivity of 0.7352 (0.6827, 0.7818) vs. 0.7501 (0.6725, 0.8144), and specificity of 0.7681 (0.6946, 0.8283) vs. 0.8208 (0.7586, 0.8697), diagnostic odds ratio (DOR) of 7.974(5.302, 11.993) vs. 13.401 (8.359, 21.483), area under the curve (AUC) of 0.7968 vs. 0.8451, respectively.ConclusionsAFU is comparable to AFP for the diagnosis of HCC.


2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bo Yao ◽  
Wen-juan Liu ◽  
Di Liu ◽  
Jin-yan Xing ◽  
Li-juan Zhang

Abstract Background Early diagnosis of sepsis is very important. It is necessary to find effective and adequate biomarkers in order to diagnose sepsis. In this study, we compared the value of sialic acid and procalcitonin for diagnosing sepsis. Methods Newly admitted intensive care unit patients were enrolled from January 2019 to June 2019. We retrospectively collected patient data, including presence of sepsis or not, procalcitonin level and sialic acid level. Receiver operating characteristic curves for the ability of sialic acid, procalcitonin and combination of sialic acid and procalcitonin to diagnose sepsis were carried out. Results A total of 644 patients were admitted to our department from January 2019 to June 2019. The incomplete data were found in 147 patients. Finally, 497 patients data were analyzed. The sensitivity, specificity and area under the curve for the diagnosis of sepsis with sialic acid, procalcitonin and combination of sialic acid and procalcitonin were 64.2, 78.3%, 0.763; 67.9, 84.0%, 0.816 and 75.2, 84.6%, 0.854. Moreover, sialic acid had good values for diagnosing septic patients with viral infection, with 87.5% sensitivity, 82.2% specificity, and 0.882 the area under the curve. Conclusions Compared to procalcitonin, sialic acid had a lower diagnostic efficacy for diagnosing sepsis in critically ill patients. However, the combination of sialic acid and procalcitonin had a higher diagnostic efficacy for sepsis. Moreover, sialic acid had good value for diagnosing virus-induced sepsis.


2017 ◽  
Vol 2017 ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhaoqiang Jiang ◽  
Shibo Ying ◽  
Wei Shen ◽  
Xianglei He ◽  
Junqiang Chen ◽  
...  

Fibulin-3 has been reported as a potential biomarker for mesothelioma. However, little is known about the diagnostic efficacies of fibulin-3 for asbestos-related diseases (ARDs) in China. This study was to investigate the utility of fibulin-3 for asbestos exposure and ARDs. A total of 430 subjects were recruited from Southeast China, including healthy individuals, asbestos-exposed (AE) individuals, and patients with pleural plaques (PP), asbestosis, and malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM). Plasma fibulin-3 was measured using the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Linear regression analyses were applied to explore the influencing factors of fibulin-3. Receiver operating characteristic curves were used to determine the cutoff values. The median fibulin-3 level of subjects in the mesothelioma group was higher than that in other groups. Subjects in the asbestosis group had higher median fibulin-3 level than those in the control group. A higher fibulin-3 level was found in the group with ≥10 years of asbestos exposure as compared with control groups. The AUCs of fibulin-3 for distinguishing MPM subjects from control, AE, PP, and asbestosis subjects were 0.92, 0.88, 0.90, and 0.81, respectively. Our study provided evidence that fibulin-3 could be a potential biomarker for the early screening of MPM, but not of other nonmalignant ARDs in Chinese populations.


2021 ◽  
pp. 096228022110605
Author(s):  
Luigi Lavazza ◽  
Sandro Morasca

Receiver Operating Characteristic curves have been widely used to represent the performance of diagnostic tests. The corresponding area under the curve, widely used to evaluate their performance quantitatively, has been criticized in several respects. Several proposals have been introduced to improve area under the curve by taking into account only specific regions of the Receiver Operating Characteristic space, that is, the plane to which Receiver Operating Characteristic curves belong. For instance, a region of interest can be delimited by setting specific thresholds for the true positive rate or the false positive rate. Different ways of setting the borders of the region of interest may result in completely different, even opposing, evaluations. In this paper, we present a method to define a region of interest in a rigorous and objective way, and compute a partial area under the curve that can be used to evaluate the performance of diagnostic tests. The method was originally conceived in the Software Engineering domain to evaluate the performance of methods that estimate the defectiveness of software modules. We compare this method with previous proposals. Our method allows the definition of regions of interest by setting acceptability thresholds on any kind of performance metric, and not just false positive rate and true positive rate: for instance, the region of interest can be determined by imposing that [Formula: see text] (also known as the Matthews Correlation Coefficient) is above a given threshold. We also show how to delimit the region of interest corresponding to acceptable costs, whenever the individual cost of false positives and false negatives is known. Finally, we demonstrate the effectiveness of the method by applying it to the Wisconsin Breast Cancer Data. We provide Python and R packages supporting the presented method.


Lupus ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (9) ◽  
pp. 1031-1039
Author(s):  
Peng Liu ◽  
Peiyuan Li ◽  
Zhong Peng ◽  
Yazhou Xiang ◽  
Chenqi Xia ◽  
...  

Objective To evaluate the role of neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR), monocyte-to-lymphocyte ratio (MLR), platelet-to-neutrophil ratio (PNR), platelet-to-monocyte ratio (PMR), and neutrophil-to-monocyte ratio (NMR) as predictors for lupus nephritis (LN) patients without infection or as biomarkers for distinguishing between infection or flare with LN patients. Methods LN patients were divided into three groups: LN without infection, LN with infection, and LN with flare. A total of 57 healthy subjects were enrolled as controls. The differentiation was analyzed between LN without infection and control group, and LN with infection and LN with flare. Correlations among variables were assessed in the LN group without infection. Receiver operating characteristic curves were constructed in two comparable groups. Results NLR, PLR, and MLR were increased significantly in the LN group without infection as compared with those in healthy controls. NLR (area under the curve (AUC): 0.75) and MLR (AUC: 0.79) were useful for distinguishing between LN patients without infection and healthy subjects. In differentiating LN patients without infection from the controls, optimal cutoffs of NLR and MLR were 3.43 (sensitivity: 45.6%, specificity: 96.5%, and overall accuracy: 68.8%) and 0.24 (sensitivity: 75.0%, specificity: 73.7%, and overall accuracy: 73.6%), respectively. In addition, NLR ( r = 0.322, p = 0.011) and PLR ( r = 0.283, p = 0.026) were positively correlated with CRP. Importantly, NLR and NMR were increased while PNR was decreased in the LN group with infection in comparison with those in the LN group with flare. NLR (AUC: 0.80), NMR (AUC: 0.78), and PNR (AUC: 0.74) were useful in differentiating LN patients with infection and flare, and their optimal cutoffs were 4.02 (sensitivity: 82.6%, specificity: 69.6%, and overall accuracy: 75.5%), 12.19 (sensitivity: 80.4%, specificity: 73.9%, and overall accuracy: 77.5%), and 28.26 (sensitivity: 65.2%, specificity: 76.8%, and overall accuracy: 71.6%), respectively. Conclusions We demonstrated, for the first time, that MLR or NMR had the best accuracy in differentiating LN patients without infection from healthy subjects, or differentiating infection from flare in LN patients, respectively. Our results implied that NLR, MLR, PNR, and NMR may be useful biomarkers in predicting LN.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Zhi-Xin Huang ◽  
Jianguo Lin ◽  
Cheng Zhang ◽  
Ying-Yi Dai ◽  
Songbin Lin ◽  
...  

Early neurologic deterioration (END) in the acute phase of ischemic stroke is a serious clinical event, which is closely related to poor prognosis. Therefore, it is important to identify presentation features that predict END and take relevant treatment measures, as they could help to prevent the deterioration of high-risk patients. The prospective intervention study was carried out from January 2018 to December 2019. We included consecutive patients hospitalized for acute ischemic stroke (AIS) within 6 hours of onset. Patients were randomly assigned (1 : 1) to recanalization therapy plus Huoxiang Zhengqi Pill (HXZQ) (intervention group) or standard recanalization therapy alone (control group). The primary outcome was the development of END according to predefined criteria within the first 1 week of stroke onset. Poisson regression was used to identify predictors for END. Of the 155 patients enrolled in the study (age, 63 ± 11 years; 28.4% female), 20 (12.9%) developed END. Univariate analysis showed that the use of HXZQ and Essen stroke risk score (ESRS) (low risk group) were protective factors for END, while advanced age was a risk factor for END. However, in multivariate analysis, only ESRS (OR, 0.232; 95%CI, 0.058–0.928; P=0.039) and the use of HXZQ (OR, 0.297; 95%CI, 0.096–0.917; P=0.035) were statistically significant. ESRS can be used as the prediction factor of END. HXZQ has small side effects and wide indication. It could be used in the treatment of AIS.


2007 ◽  
Vol 156 (5) ◽  
pp. 569-575 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michèle d’Herbomez ◽  
Gérard Forzy ◽  
Catherine Bauters ◽  
Catherine Tierny ◽  
Pascal Pigny ◽  
...  

Objectives: The aims of this study were to determine the performance of each variable, to define the optimal diagnostic thresholds and to determine the relative value of assaying chromogranin A (CgA). Design: Prospective study. Methods: Two groups of patients were studied: a control group of 71 patients and a group of 63 patients with a histologically-proven pheochromocytoma (52 pheochromocytomas and 14 paragangliomas). Fourteen of the patients had a family history of the disease. Eleven variables were assayed in each patient, i.e. the plasma and urinary concentrations of amines and their derivatives, and the CgA serum concentration. Results: The study of the control group showed that all the serum assays gave false positive results (from 6 to 23%), as did four of the six urinary assays (from 2.9 to 12.3%). The areas under the receiver operating characteristic curves varied from 0.689 to 0.992. The variables relating to the epinephrine pathway were significantly less expressed in the hereditary diseases than in the sporadic cases. The diagnostic thresholds of the three most efficient variables have been raised. Conclusions: Plasma determinations of metanephrines are now an easy and convenient tool for the diagnosis of pheochromocytoma. However, in our study the best specificity was obtained with the urinary tests rather than with the plasma assays while the highest sensitivities were for the normetanephrine assays. The assay of CgA was highly efficient in diagnosing pheochromocytomas in the absence of renal insufficiency. By combining it with fractionated metanephrine assays, the sensitivities of the latter were increased.


2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (10) ◽  
pp. 1424-1432
Author(s):  
Gregory L. Hundemer ◽  
Navdeep Tangri ◽  
Manish M. Sood ◽  
Tim Ramsay ◽  
Ann Bugeja ◽  
...  

Background and objectivesThe kidney failure risk equation is a clinical tool commonly used for prediction of progression from CKD to kidney failure. The kidney failure risk equation’s accuracy in advanced CKD and whether this varies by CKD etiology remains unknown. This study examined the kidney failure risk equation’s discrimination and calibration at 2 and 5 years among a large tertiary care population with advanced CKD from heterogeneous etiologies.Design, setting, participants, & measurementsThis retrospective cohort study included 1293 patients with advanced CKD (median eGFR 15 ml/min per 1.73 m2) referred to the Ottawa Hospital Multi-Care Kidney Clinic between 2010 and 2016, with follow-up clinical data available through 2018. Four-variable kidney failure risk equation scores for 2- and 5-year risks of progression to kidney failure (defined as dialysis or kidney transplantation) were calculated upon initial referral and correlated with the subsequent observed kidney failure incidence within these time frames. Receiver operating characteristic curves and calibration plots were used to measure the discrimination and calibration of the kidney failure risk equation both in the overall advanced CKD population and by CKD etiology: diabetic kidney disease, hypertensive nephrosclerosis, GN, polycystic kidney disease, and other. Pairwise comparisons of the receiver operating characteristic curves by CKD etiology were performed to compare kidney failure risk equation discrimination.ResultsThe kidney failure risk equation provided adequate to excellent discrimination in identifying patients with CKD likely to progress to kidney failure at the 2- and 5-year time points both overall (2-year area under the curve, 0.83; 95% confidence interval, 0.81 to 0.85; 5-year area under the curve, 0.81; 95% confidence interval, 0.77 to 0.84) and across CKD etiologies. The kidney failure risk equation displayed adequate calibration at the 2- and 5-year time points both overall and across CKD etiologies (Hosmer–Lemeshow P≥0.05); however, the predicted risks of kidney failure were higher than the observed risks across CKD etiologies with the exception of polycystic kidney disease.ConclusionsThe kidney failure risk equation provides adequate discrimination and calibration in advanced CKD and across CKD etiologies.


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