Publications by authors named "Apostolos Alexandridis"
. Benzene is a known human carcinogen. Human exposure to benzene can be assessed by measuring -muconic acid (MUCA) in urine.
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- * The Golestan Cohort Study began in 2004 and tracked cases of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma, matching them with controls based on several factors, and analyzed urinary biomarkers related to cancer exposure.
- * Significant associations were found between certain metabolites and esophageal cancer, with higher odds ratios especially noted among tobacco users, suggesting both tobacco and some non-tobacco chemicals contribute to cancer risk.
Article Synopsis
- Evolving tobacco use, especially with the rise of electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS), highlights the need to re-examine how tobacco impacts oral health.
- The study uses data from the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health Study, focusing on adults who reported no prior oral health issues, to analyze links between tobacco product use and oral health outcomes over several years.
- Findings show various sample sizes for different oral health issues, indicating that a significant portion of participants were affected by conditions like gum disease and precancerous lesions, with a diverse demographic primarily composed of women and non-Hispanic White individuals.
Purpose: Heated tobacco products (HTP) heat-processed tobacco leaf into an aerosol inhaled by the user. This study assessed prevalence and correlates of HTP awareness, ever use, and current use among US middle and high school students.
Methods: Data came from the 2019 and 2020 National Youth Tobacco Survey, a cross-sectional survey of US public and private, middle and high school students.
Objective: This systematic review synthesizes evidence on patient-reported outpatient opioid analgesic use after surgery.
Methods: We searched PubMed (February 2019) and Web of Science and Embase (June 2019) for U.S.
Background: In the US, medication assisted treatment, particularly with office-based buprenorphine, has been an important component of opioid dependence treatment among patients with iatrogenic addiction to opioid analgesics. The predictors of initiating buprenorphine for addiction among opioid analgesic patients have not been well-described.
Methods: We conducted a time-to-event analysis using data from the North Carolina (NC) Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP).
Background: Project Lazarus (PL) is a seven-strategy, community-coalition-based intervention designed to reduce opioid overdose and dependence. The seven strategies include: community education, provider education, hospital emergency department policy change, diversion control, support programs for patients with pain, naloxone policies, and addiction treatment expansion. PL was originally developed in Wilkes County, NC.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: To examine differences in rates of opioid overdose death (OOD) between former North Carolina (NC) inmates and NC residents and evaluate factors associated with postrelease OOD.
Methods: We linked NC inmate release data to NC death records, calculated OOD standardized mortality ratios to compare former inmates with NC residents, and calculated hazard ratios to identify predictors of time to OOD.
Results: Of the 229 274 former inmates released during 2000 to 2015, 1329 died from OOD after release.
Effective community-based actions are urgently needed to combat the ongoing epidemic of opioid overdose. Community readiness (CR) has been linked to communities' support for collective action, which in turn has been associated with the success of community-wide prevention strategies and resulting behavior change. Our study, conducted in North Carolina, assessed the relationship between CR and two indices of opioid overdose.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: In response to increasing opioid overdoses, US prevention efforts have focused on prescriber education and supply, demand and harm reduction strategies. Limited evidence informs which interventions are effective. We evaluated Project Lazarus, a centralised statewide intervention designed to prevent opioid overdose.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: In 2013, a total of 1,085 North Carolina residents died due to unintentional poisoning; 91% of these deaths were attributed to medications or drugs (over-the-counter, prescription, or illicit). Proper disposal of unused, unneeded, and/or expired medications is an essential part of preventing these unintentional deaths, as well as averting the other adverse consequences of these drugs on the environment and population health.
Methods: Operation Medicine Drop is a medication take-back program coordinated by Safe Kids North Carolina, a county-level, coalition-based injury prevention organization.
State-level prescription drug monitoring programs (PDMPs) show promise as a key strategy to respond to the epidemic of the misuse and abuse of controlled substances (CS), particularly opioid analgesics, in the United States. Undocumented concerns have been expressed that these PDMPs may have a "chilling effect" on providers' willingness to prescribe these substances to their patients. Using data from North Carolina's PDMP for the 3-year period from 2009 through 2011, we examined whether rapid increases in (1) the number of providers who queried the system, and (2) the number of days on which they queried it, would be related to their prescribing practices in regards to CS.
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