Social Network Analysis of Cattle Movement in Sukhothai Province, Thailand: A Study to Improve Control Measurements

The aim of this study is to analyse the pattern of cattle movement in Sukhothai province, Thailand. A validated questionnaire was applied to 308 respondents related to cattle farming using one-step snowball sampling. The results showed that most of the nodes are farmers who move their animals in the province. The average normalized degree centrality and normalized closeness centrality were low (<0.01 and 0.04, resp.). We found that traders are the nodes with a high value of centrality. This corresponds with the cutpoint analysis results that traders are outstanding. In conclusion, the relevant authorities should focus on the nodes such as traders for controlling disease. However, a measure to detect disease in the early stages needs to be implemented.

Pretreatment serum TIMP-1 levels and survival in advanced pancreatic cancer

e15568 Background: Tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase-1 (TIMP-1) has been shown to have diverse multifunctional roles in tumorigenesis such as inhibition of the catalytic activity of MMPs, growth promotion, inhibition of apoptosis and regulation of angiogenesis. Elevated TIMP-1 has been associated with an unfavorable prognosis in many cancers including breast, colorectal, gastric, head and neck, lung, and lymphoma. VEGF is also intimately associated with angiogenesis. Methods: This study determined serum TIMP-1 and VEGF levels in a phase III clinical trial of 157 patients with advanced pancreatic cancer. ELISAs for TIMP-1 and VEGF (Oncogene Science / Siemens HealthCare Diagnostics, Cambridge, MA) were employed to measure pretreatment serum TIMP-1 levels in 157 pancreatic cancer patients enrolled in a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled phase III trial. Statistical analysis was performed with TIMP-1 and VEGF on a continuous and cutpoint basis. Serum biomarker levels were then correlated with patient survival using Kaplan -Meier life table analysis. Results: Serum TIMP-1 levels in 157 pancreatic patients had a median of 409.9 ng/mL, and ranged from 144 to 1078 ng/mL. Patients with higher serum TIMP-1 had significantly shorter survival on a continuous basis (p = 0.001), on quartile analysis (p = 0.004), and on a dichotomous cutpoint analysis of upper 25 % vs lower 75 % (median survival 101 days vs. 197 days)(p< 0.001). Serum VEGF level was not associated with survival on a continuous (p = 0.57) or cutpoint analysis (p= 0.93). Conclusions: Pancreatic cancer patients with higher serum TIMP-1 levels had significantly shorter overall survival. Serum TIMP-1 level should be evaluated as a predictive factor for response to novel treatment regimens. [Table: see text]