Increased prevalence of anti-DFS70 antibodies in young females: experience from a large international multi-center study on blood donors

2019 ◽  
Vol 57 (7) ◽  
pp. 999-1005 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger Albesa ◽  
Ulrich Sachs ◽  
Maria Infantino ◽  
Mariangela Manfredi ◽  
Maurizio Benucci ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Isolated antibodies to DFS70 have been described in healthy individuals and are rarely found in patients with antinuclear antibody-associated autoimmune rheumatic diseases (AARD). However, no data is available on geographic differences in the prevalence of anti-DFS70 antibodies. We aimed to study the prevalence of anti-DFS70 antibodies in blood donor samples from several countries representing various ethnical backgrounds and geographic regions in the world. Methods Sera from apparently healthy blood donors (n≥300 per site) were collected in seven countries (USA, Italy, Spain, Germany, UK, Belgium and Brazil). All samples (n=2628) were tested for anti-DFS70 antibodies by QUANTA Flash DFS70 (Inova Diagnostics, Inc., San Diego, CA, USA). Results The prevalence of anti-DFS70 antibodies varied from 4/321 (1.2%, Italy) to 42/497 (8.5%, USA). Consequently, the prevalence of the antibodies was significantly higher in USA compared to all other countries (p<0.05). In addition, the prevalence in the combined cohort (all sites) was higher in young blood donors (<35 years; 5.0% vs. 2.7%; p=0.0017) and among females (4.5% vs. 3.0%; p=0.0446). However, when cohorts from different countries were corrected for age and gender, no significant difference between the countries were found. Conclusions This is the first study to analyze the prevalence of anti-DFS70 antibodies in different geographic areas using a standardized assay. Our findings show that the antibodies are most prevalent in young females.

2006 ◽  
Vol 64 (4) ◽  
pp. 912-915 ◽  
Author(s):  
José Carlos Pereira ◽  
Arthur Oscar Schelp ◽  
Arlindo Neto Montagnoli ◽  
Ana Rita Gatto ◽  
André Augusto Spadotto ◽  
...  

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the maximum residual signal auto-correlation also known as pitch amplitude (PA) values in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients. METHOD: The signals of 21 Parkinson’s patients were compared with 15 healthy individuals, divided according age and gender. RESULTS: Statistical difference was seen between groups for PA, 0.39 for controls and 0.25 for PD. Normal value threshold was set as 0.3; (p<0.001). In the Parkinson’s group 80.77%, and in the control group only 12.28%, had a PA<0.3 demonstrating an association between these variables. The dispersion diagram for age and PA for PD individuals showed p=0.01 and r=0.54. There was no significant difference in relation to gender and PA between groups. CONCLUSION: The significant differences in pitch’s amplitude between PD patients and healthy individuals demonstrate the methods specificity. The results showed the need of prospective controlled studies to improve the use and indications of residual signal auto-correlation to evaluate speech in PD patients.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  

Radiographic Mandibular Indices serve as easy and relatively cheap tools for evaluating bone mineralization. Objectives: To examine the effect of age and gender on three mandibular indices: the panoramic mandibular index (PMI), the mandibular ratio (MR) and the mandibular cortical index (MCI), among Libyan population. Methods: The three indices were measured on 317 digital (OPGs) of adult humans (155 males, 162 females). The sample was divided into six age groups (from 18-25 years through 56-65 years). The measurements were analyzed for interactions with age and sex, using SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Studies) software version no. 22. The tests employed were two way ANOVA, the unpaired T-test and chi-square test. Results: The mean PMI fluctuated between 0.37 s.d. 0.012 and 0.38 s.d. 0.012. among the sixth age groups. One-way ANOVA statistical test revealed no significant of age on PMI. On the other hand gender variation has effect on PMI, since independent sample t-test disclosed that the difference between the male and female PMI means statistically significant. ANOVA test showed that the means of MR among age groups showed a negative correlation i.e. MR mean declined from 3.01 in 18-25 age groups to 2.7 in 55-65 age groups. In contrary, the gender showed no effect on MR according two sample t-test at p> 0.05. In regards with MCI, statistical analysis showed that it affected by age that is C1 was decreasing by age while C2 and C3 were increased by age. Using chi square test the result indicated that there is a significant difference among the different age group and the two genders in MCI readings. Conclusion: PMI was influenced significantly by age but minimally by the gender. MR is not affected by gender but has a negative correlation with age. MCI is affected by both age and gender


2021 ◽  
pp. 003329412110268
Author(s):  
Vaitsa Giannouli ◽  
Juliana Yordanova ◽  
Vasil Kolev

Research on aesthetic descriptors of art in different languages is scarce. The aim of the present study was to elucidate the conceptual structure of aesthetic experiences of three forms of art (music, visual arts and literature) in the Greek language, which has not been explored so far. It was further aimed to study if biological and cognitive factors such as age and gender might produce differences in art appreciation. A total of 467 younger and older individuals from Greece were asked to generate verbal descriptors (adjectives) in free word-listing conditions in order to collect terms reflecting the aesthetics-related semantic field of art. The capacity of verbal memory was controlled by using a battery of neuropsychological tests. Analysis of generated adjectives’ frequency and salience revealed that ‘beautiful’ was the most prominent descriptor that was selected with a distinctive primacy for all three forms of arts. The primacy of ‘beautiful’ was significantly more pronounced for visual arts relative to music and literature. Although the aging-related decline of verbal capacity was similar for males and females, the primacy of ‘beautiful’ depended on age and gender by being more emphasized for young females than males, and for old males than females. Analysis of secondary descriptors and pairs of adjectives revealed that affective and hedonic experiences are essentially fixed in the semantic field of art reflection. It is concluded that although the concept of the aesthetics seems to be diversified and rich, a clear primacy of beauty is found for the Greek cultural environment and across different forms of art. The results also highlight the presence of complex influences of biological and cognitive factors on aesthetic art experiences.


2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suju Wang ◽  
Wenyang Hao ◽  
Chunxiao Xu ◽  
Daofeng Ni ◽  
Zhiqiang Gao ◽  
...  

Objective(s). The purpose of this study was to explore the effectiveness of wideband acoustic immittance (WAI) in the diagnosis of otosclerosis by comparing the differences in the energy reflectance (ER) of WAI between patients with otosclerosis and age- and gender-matched normal hearing controls in the Chinese population. Methods. Twenty surgically confirmed otosclerotic ears were included in the otosclerotic group. The ER of WAI at ambient and peak pressures, resonance frequency, and 226-Hz tympanogram were collected prior to surgery using a Titan hearing test platform (Interacoustics A/S, Middelfart, Denmark). All diagnoses of otosclerosis in the tested ear were confirmed by surgery after the measurements. Thirteen normal adults (26 ears) who were age- and gender-matched with the otosclerotic patients were included as the control group. Results. At peak pressure, the ERs of otosclerotic patients were higher than those of the control group for frequencies less than 4,000Hz and were lower for frequencies greater than 4,000Hz. In addition, within the analyzed frequencies, the differences observed at 2,520Hz was statistically significant (p<0.05/16=0.003, Bonferroni corrected). At ambient pressure, the differences observed at 1,260 and 6,350Hz were statistically significant (p<0.05/16=0.003, Bonferroni corrected). Although the differences between the otosclerotic and control groups exhibited similar trends to those in studies implemented in Caucasian populations, the norms in the present study in the control group were different from those in the Caucasian populations, suggesting racial differences in WAI test results. Regarding the middle ear resonance frequency, no significant difference was observed between the two groups (P>0.05). Conclusion. WAI can provide valuable information for the diagnosis of otosclerosis in the Chinese population. Norms and diagnostic criteria corresponding to the patient’s racial group are necessary to improve the efficiency of WAI in the diagnosis of otosclerosis.


QJM ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 114 (Supplement_1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hamed Mahmoud Shatla ◽  
Mariam Fathy Abdel Maksoud ◽  
Raghda Mohamed Hesham Zaitoun ◽  
Alaa Rabie Abdel Baset Mahmoud

Abstract Objective To measure the level of hair Mg, as well as its level in serum, in patients with epilepsy and compare them to the levels found in non-epileptic age and gender matched children, and to explore any potential correlation between either serum or hair level of magnesium and seizure characteristics in children with idiopathic epilepsy. Methods An observational cross-sectional study including 50 children with idiopathic epilepsy and 100 non-epileptic age and gender matched control subjects. Cases were subjected to full history taking, examination and measurements of serum and hair levels of magnesium, control subjects only had their serum and hair level of magnesium measured as for the cases. Results The mean serum magnesium was 29.11 ± 13.42 ug/ml for cases and 27.67 ± 7.24 ug/ml for controls and the median hair level of magnesium was 42.22 ug/g with IQR of 25.9 - 56.82 for cases and 38.6 ug/g with IQR of 25.21 - 61.25 for controls. No statistically significant difference was observed between both groups as regards either serum or hair magnesium levels. No statistically significant correlation was observed between either hair or serum levels of magnesium and seizure characteristics though the correlations were nearing statistical significance for the hair magnesium content. Conclusion Hair magnesium level may be better correlated to seizure characteristics and control than serum levels in patients with epilepsy.


2021 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seyed Mostafa Seyedmardani ◽  
Saeed Abkhiz ◽  
Azadeh Megrazi ◽  
Aarefeh Jafarzade ◽  
Golshan Kamali Zonouz

Background : Fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) is defined as widespread and persistent pain in the musculoskeletal system. There are limited reports regarding the prevalence of fibromyalgia syndrome in patients with advanced kidney failure undergoing regular hemodialysis. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the prevalence of fibromyalgia syndrome and its risk factors in a large proportion of patients under the hemodialysis condition. Materials and Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 293 patients who were admitted to the hemodialysis ward were evaluated for fibromyalgia syndrome in an educational hospital. The questionnaire was designed according to symptom severity score (SS score) and widespread pain index (WPI) criteria. The correlation between FMS and various variables, including demographic, clinical, and biochemistry biomarkers, was also precisely calculated by logistic regression. Data were analyzed using SPSS v.17 statistics software. Results: The results showed that, of 293 hemodialysis patients, 130 patients (44.4%) had fibromyalgia, the mean age of patients with and without fibromyalgia was 61.09 ± 15.36 and 53.49 ± 15.38 years old, respectively (P = 0.001). Moreover, there was a significant difference in terms of gender among patients with fibromyalgia syndrome (P = 0.001). To note, there was no significant relationship between the kidney failure etiopathogenesis, duration of dialysis, body mass index (BMI), Kt/v index, history of peritoneal dialysis, and laboratory parameters with fibromyalgia in hemodialysis patients (P > 0.05). However, our findings revealed that both age and gender could be considered as the predictor variables associated with fibromyalgia in patients undergoing hemodialysis. Conclusion: Taken together, in this study, we found that age and gender would be the critical factors in terms of the fibromyalgia syndrome in patients undergoing hemodialysis.


2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 11
Author(s):  
Fereshteh Heydari ◽  
Shohreh Farahani

<p>This study was conducted to compare with the executive function of ADHD versus normal male and female children. To obtain this objective, 30 ADHD children referring a private psychological center for the first time who had taken no medication for this disorder, and 30 normal children from one of the schools of District 14 in Tehran were selected randomly who were of the same age and gender of ADHD children. Wisconsin test was used as a measurement tool. Results showed that there is a significant difference between the average scores of the executive function of normal and ADHD children as well as average scores of the executive function of normal boys and ADHD children at the 0.01 level. In addition, there was a significant difference between the average scores of the executive function of normal girls and ADHD girls at the 0.05 level according to which null hypothesis is rejected. Therefore, ADHD children are of lower executive and cognitive function compared to normal children and have extensive cognitive deficits. Therefore, they require medications along with special training and rehabilitation.</p>


2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 170-176
Author(s):  
Hisayoshi Tachihara ◽  
Junichiro Hamada

Background: The rib cage, such as the thoracic spine and ribs, influences glenohumeral mobility and the development of shoulder disorders. Objective: To evaluate movements of the ribs, thoracic vertebrae during bilateral arm elevation and to clarify the characteristic influences of age and gender. Methods: Subjects comprised 33 healthy individuals divided into a young group (10 males, 7 females; mean age, 25 years) and a middle-aged group (8 males, 8 females; mean age, 52 years). Chest CT was performed with two arm positions: arms hanging downwards; and arms elevated at 160°. Images were three-dimensionally reconstructed to evaluate rib movement, extension angle of thoracic vertebrae. Results: Maximal movement was observed at the fifth rib, and rib movement decreased with increasing distance from the fifth rib in both the groups. In males, movement of the second to fourth ribs was smaller in the middle-aged group than in the young group (p < 0.05). Movement of the first to ninth ribs was smaller in females than in males (p < 0.05). No significant difference in the extension angle of the thoracic vertebrae was found. Conclusion: Fifth rib movement is the largest among all ribs during bilateral arm elevation. Reduction of upper rib movement initially arises as an age-related degradation in males. Women exhibit less rib movement during bilateral arm elevation.


2020 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 15
Author(s):  
Husin Thamrin ◽  
Khafidhotul Ilmiah ◽  
Ni Wajan Tirthaningsih

Colorectal cancer has became burden in the world.The latest study shows that colorectal cancer is the third most common cancer in men and second most common cancer in women globally. There are difference characteristic of epidemiology in every countries. Moreover, there is no study that represents epidemiology of colorectal cancer in Indonesia yet, especially in East Java. The aim of this study was to describe colorectal tumor profile by age and gender in Gastroentero-Hepatology Center, Dr Soetomo Hospital. This study has received a certificate of Ethical Clearance No.273/Panke.KKE/IV/2015, a descriptive retrospective study. We collected data using medical records, and patients who have been colonoscopy examination and suspected colorectal tumor were included. There were 201 patients, divided to 100 males and 101 females. The peak of incidence was on 51-60 years old group, but on the 31-40 years old incidence of colorectal tumor was increased. The youngest patient was 17 years old. And tumors are more likely develop in distal area, especially in rectum. This study shows a different characteristic profile of colorectal tumor, where tumor is developed at young people and there is no significant difference between male and female for the incidence.


Author(s):  
Anuja Jha ◽  
Manju Agrawal ◽  
Arvind Neral ◽  
Rajesh Hishikar ◽  
Basant Maheshwari

Background: Empirically chosen antibiotics based on the local resistance pattern of uropathogens remain the principle treatment of urinary tract infections (UTI).Methods: Antibiogram of most frequent uropathogen was determined. Based on the antibiogram result, authors compared effectiveness of drugs recommended for UTI by National centre for disease control (NCDC), India, and assessed age and gender based variability in the effectiveness of these drugs.Results: 1278 urine samples were accounted, of which 405 samples showed significant growth. E. coli was the most common uropathogen (n=146, 36%) followed by enterococcus species (31%) and Klebsiella pneumoniae (10%). Using McNemar’s test authors found that nitrofurantoin (90% sensitivity) was statistically the most effective drug among drugs recommended by NCDC for uncomplicated cystitis. Furthermore, authors used Fisher’s exact test on adults and paediatrics and found that significant difference in effectiveness was observed for nitrofurantoin (p-value <0.001) and cotrimoxazole (p-value 0.034). Using logistic regression, authors found that with age, effectiveness of ciprofloxacin and cotrimoxazole deteriorate significantly (p-value 0.021 and 0.002 respectively). Additionally, authors observed that cotrimoxazole has significantly better efficacy in males compared to females (p-value 0.022).Conclusions: In accordance with present study, nitrofurantoin can be used as first line treatment for uncomplicated cystitis. Age and gender should be considered while prescribing empirical treatment for UTI. Periodic surveillance should be carried out to identify the on-going pattern of antibiogram to update the guideline for empirical therapy.


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