Ukraine surveillance data suggest high tuberculosis (TB) incidence, including multidrug resistance. Of 299 newcomers from Ukraine screened in San Francisco, California, USA, by using an interferon-γ-release-assay (IGRA) and chest radiograph, 7.4% were IGRA positive and 1 had laboratory-confirmed pansusceptible TB.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Abnormal glycolipid metabolism plays a crucial role in hypertension. While an elevated triglyceride-glucose (TyG) index has been recognized as a risk factor for developing hypertension, the associations between the TyG index and different hypertension subtypes, namely, isolated systolic hypertension (ISH), isolated diastolic hypertension (IDH), and systolic-diastolic hypertension (SDH), remain unclear. This study was designed to investigate the associations between the TyG index and hypertension subtypes in a general Chinese population.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Low-density lipoprotein receptor (LDLR) is the primary pathway for removal of cholesterol from the circulation, pro-protein convertase subtilisin-like kexin type 9 (PCSK9) is a secreted protease that binds to and promotes degradation of the LDLR protein. The goal of this case-control study was to investigate the role of soluble LDLR (sLDLR) and PCSK9 in coronary artery disease (CAD) and investigate the relationship between these two indices and CAD.
Methods: In a sample of 144 Chinese patients recruited between January 2018 and August 2018, 81 cases with mild and severe stenosis characterized by coronary angiograph (CAG) and 63 healthy controls were selected using the propensity score matching (PSM) based on demographics and medical history.
Purpose: Diabetes and hypertension are two common comorbidities that affect breast cancer patients, particularly Black women. Disruption of chronic disease management during cancer treatment has been speculated. Therefore, this study examined the implementation of clinical practice guidelines and health outcomes for these comorbidities before and during cancer treatment.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Black women are more likely to have comorbidity at breast cancer diagnosis compared with White women, which may account for half of the Black-White survivor disparity. Comprehensive disease management requires a coordinated team of healthcare professionals including primary care practitioners, but few studies have examined shared care in the management of comorbidities during cancer care, especially among racial/ethnic minorities.
Objective: To examine whether the type of medical team composition is associated with optimal clinical care management of comorbidities.
Purpose: To determine the association of pre-diagnostic allostatic load (AL) with health-related quality of life (HRQOL) among Black women with breast cancer.
Methods: In a sample of 409 Black women with non-metastatic breast cancer enrolled in the Women's Circle of Health Follow-Up Study (WCHFS), two pre-diagnostic AL measures were estimated using medical records data from up to 12 months prior to breast cancer diagnosis: AL-lipid/metabolic profile-based measure and AL-inflammatory profile-based measure. HRQOL was assessed approximately 24 months post diagnosis, using the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Breast Cancer (FACT-B) instrument, including 5 subscale scores [presented by physical well-being (PWB), social & family well-being (SFWB), emotional well-being (EWB), functional well-being (FWB), and breast cancer-specific scale (BCS)] and 3 derived total scores [presented by trial outcome index (TOI), Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-General (FACT-G) and FACT-B].
Background: Virtual neighborhood audits have been used to visually assess characteristics of the built environment for health research. Few studies have investigated spatial predictive properties of audit item responses patterns, which are important for sampling efficiency and audit item selection. We investigated the spatial properties, with a focus on predictive accuracy, of 31 individual audit items related to built environment in a major Metropolitan region of the Northeast United States.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Few studies have empirically tested the association of allostatic load (AL) with breast cancer clinicopathology. The aim of this study was to examine the association of AL, measured using relevant biomarkers recorded in medical records before breast cancer diagnosis, with unfavorable tumor clinicopathologic features among Black women.
Methods: In a sample of 409 Black women with nonmetastatic breast cancer who are enrolled in the Women's Circle of Health Follow-Up Study, we estimated prediagnostic AL using two measures: AL measure 1 [lipid profile-based-assessed by systolic and diastolic blood pressure (SBP, DBP), high-density lipoprotein, low-density lipoprotein, total cholesterol, triglycerides, and glucose levels; waist circumference; and use of diabetes, hypertension, or hypercholesterolemia medication] and AL measure 2 (inflammatory index-based-assessed by SBP, DBP, glucose, and albumin levels; estimated glomerular filtration rate; body mass index; waist circumference; and use of medications previously described).
Mammogram-detected breast cancers have a better prognosis than those identified through clinical breast exam (CBE) or through self-detection, primarily because tumors detected by mammography are more likely to be smaller and do not involve regional nodes. In a sample of 1,322 Black women, aged 40-75 years, diagnosed with breast cancer between 2002 and 2016, we evaluated factors associated with CBE and self-detection versus screening mammogram as the initial mode of breast cancer detection, using multivariable logistic regression models. Compared with screening mammogram, history of routine screening mammogram (OR 0.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFExposures to carcinogens in hair products have been explored as breast cancer risk factors, yielding equivocal findings. We examined hair product use (hair dyes, chemical relaxers and cholesterol or placenta-containing conditioners) among African American (AA) and White women, and explored associations with breast cancer. Multivariable-adjusted models were used to estimate odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) to describe the associations of interest among 2280 cases (1508 AA and 772 White) and 2005 controls (1290 AA and 715 White).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: As social media becomes increasingly popular online venues for engaging in communication about public health issues, it is important to understand how users promote knowledge and awareness about specific topics.
Objective: The aim of this study is to examine the frequency of discussion and differences by race and ethnicity of cancer-related topics among unique users via Twitter.
Methods: Tweets were collected from April 1, 2014 through January 21, 2015 using the Twitter public streaming Application Programming Interface (API) to collect 1% of public tweets.