Saliva protein biomarkers to detect oral squamous cell carcinoma in a high-risk population in Taiwan.

Most cases of oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) develop from visible oral potentially malignant disorders (OPMDs). The latter exhibit heterogeneous subtypes with different transformation potentials, complicating the early detection of OSCC during routine visual oral cancer screenings. To develop clinically applicable biomarkers, we collected saliva samples from 96 healthy controls, 103 low-risk OPMDs, 130 high-risk OPMDs, and 131 OSCC subjects.

Feasibility of human telomerase reverse transcriptase mRNA expression in individual blastomeres as an indicator of early embryo development.

Purpose: The study was undertaken to test whether human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT) transcripts in an individual blastomere could be used as an indicator for embryo development.

Methods: Group A consisted of day 3 normal cleaving embryos at 4- to 8-cell stage, which were surplus and not allocated for uterine transfer. Group B consisted of arrested or fragmented embryos at the same stage, which were considered to be compromised.

Clinical evaluation of a new model of self-obtained method for the assessment of genital human papilloma virus infection in an underserved population.

Background: We designed a self-sampling method to collect exfoliated genital cells for human papilloma virus (HPV) detection. The aim was to assess whether it was suitable as an assistant tool for the early detection of cervical pre-cancer and cancer in a special category of the women who are not frequently screened for cervical cancer.

Methods: We compared the results of HPV detection that were self-obtained and physician-obtained cervical swabs from the same patient that were analyzed using hybrid capture II assay.