Multimodal image fusion-assisted endoscopic evacuation of spontaneous intracerebral hemorrhage.

Purpose: Although traditional craniotomy (TC) surgery has failed to show benefits for the functional outcome of intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH). However, a minimally invasive hematoma removal plan to avoid white matter fiber damage may be a safer and more feasible surgical approach, which may improve the prognosis of ICH. We conducted a historical cohort study on the use of multimodal image fusion-assisted neuroendoscopic surgery (MINS) for the treatment of ICH, and compared its safety and effectiveness with traditional methods.

Sample size determination for adaptive crossover trial in detecting gene-drug interactions.

Parallel design and crossover design are two of the most frequently used designs for studying drug-gene interactions. Due to the concerns of statistical power and ethics, it is often more prudent to use the crossover design while allowing the patients to have choices of not switching the treatment if the first stage treatment is effective. This complicates the calculation of the required sample size to achieve pre-specified statistical power.

Testing generalized linear models with high-dimensional nuisance parameter.

Generalized linear models often have a high-dimensional nuisance parameters, as seen in applications such as testing gene-environment interactions or gene-gene interactions. In these scenarios, it is essential to test the significance of a high-dimensional sub-vector of the model's coefficients. Although some existing methods can tackle this problem, they often rely on the bootstrap to approximate the asymptotic distribution of the test statistic, and thus are computationally expensive.

Statistical Methods for Assessing the Explained Variation of a Health Outcome by a Mixture of Exposures.

Exposures to environmental pollutants are often composed of mixtures of chemicals that can be highly correlated because of similar sources and/or chemical structures. The effect of an individual chemical on a health outcome can be weak and difficult to detect because of the relatively low level of exposures to many environmental pollutants. To tackle the challenging problem of assessing the health risk of exposure to a mixture of environmental pollutants, we propose a statistical approach to assessing the proportion of the variation of an outcome explained by a mixture of pollutants.

Powering Research through Innovative Methods for Mixtures in Epidemiology (PRIME) Program: Novel and Expanded Statistical Methods.

Humans are exposed to a diverse mixture of chemical and non-chemical exposures across their lifetimes. Well-designed epidemiology studies as well as sophisticated exposure science and related technologies enable the investigation of the health impacts of mixtures. While existing statistical methods can address the most basic questions related to the association between environmental mixtures and health endpoints, there were gaps in our ability to learn from mixtures data in several common epidemiologic scenarios, including high correlation among health and exposure measures in space and/or time, the presence of missing observations, the violation of important modeling assumptions, and the presence of computational challenges incurred by current implementations.

Endoscopic surgery for thalamic hemorrhage breaking into ventricles: Comparison of endoscopic surgery, minimally invasive hematoma puncture, and external ventricular drainage.

Purpose: Thalamic hemorrhage breaking into ventricles (THBIV) is a devastating disease with high morbidity and mortality rates. Endoscopic surgery (ES) may improve outcomes, although there is no consensus on its superiority. We investigated the efficacy and safety of ES and compared the outcomes of different management strategies by ES, hematoma puncture and drainage (HPD), and external ventricular drainage (EVD) in patients with THBIV.

Metallic air pollutants and breast cancer heterogeneity.

Background: Emerging evidence suggests airborne metals may be associated with breast cancer risk. However, breast cancer is heterogenous and associations with heavy metals vary by subtype. Heavy metals possess both carcinogenic and xenoestrogenic properties which may be related to different tumor etiologies.

Correlations between Mitofusin 2 Expression in Fibroblasts and Pelvic Organ Prolapse: An Study.

Background: Both Mitofusin 2 (Mfn2) and pelvic organ prolapse (POP) are related to aging. The aim of the present study was to investigate the variations of Mfn2 expression in the uterosacral ligaments of patients with and/or without POP and their correlations with the expression of procollagen.

Methods: Fibroblasts were cultured using tissue specimens that were harvested from the uterosacral ligaments of POP and non-POP (NPOP) patients (n = 10 for each group) from September 2016 to December 2016.

Identification of differentially expressed signatures of long non-coding RNAs associated with different metastatic potentials in gastric cancer.

Background: Gastric cancer (GC) is known for its lymph node metastasis and outstanding morbidity and mortality. Thus, improvement in the current knowledge regarding the molecular mechanism of GC is urgently needed to discover novel biomarkers involved in its progression and prognosis. Several long, non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) play important roles in gastric tumorigenesis and metastasis.

Correlation between DNA methylation and gene expression in the brains of patients with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.

Objectives: Aberrant DNA methylation and gene expression have been reported in postmortem brain tissues of psychotic patients, but until now there has been no systematic evaluation of synergistic changes in methylation and expression on a genome-wide scale in brain tissue.

Methods: In this study, genome-wide methylation and expression analyses were performed on cerebellum samples from 39 patients with schizophrenia, 36 patients with bipolar disorder, and 43 unaffected controls, to screen for a correlation between gene expression and CpG methylation.

Results: Out of 71,753 CpG gene pairs (CGPs) tested across the genome, 204 were found to significantly correlate with gene expression after correction for multiple testing [p < 0.

Common vitamin D pathway gene variants reveal contrasting effects on serum vitamin D levels in African Americans and European Americans.

Vitamin D deficiency is more common among African Americans (AAs) than among European Americans (EAs), and epidemiologic evidence links vitamin D status to many health outcomes. Two genome-wide association studies (GWAS) in European populations identified vitamin D pathway gene single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with serum vitamin D [25(OH)D] levels, but a few of these SNPs have been replicated in AAs. Here, we investigated the associations of 39 SNPs in vitamin D pathway genes, including 19 GWAS-identified SNPs, with serum 25(OH)D concentrations in 652 AAs and 405 EAs.

Relationship between the expressions of mitofusin-2 and procollagen in uterosacral ligament fibroblasts of postmenopausal patients with pelvic organ prolapse.

Objectives: To compare the mRNA and protein expressions of mitochondrial fusion protein-2 (mitofusin-2, Mfn2), and procollagen 1A1/1A2/3A1 in uterosacral ligament fibroblasts of postmenopausal patients with or without pelvic organ prolapse (POP). The effect of Mfn2 on the expression of procollagen in fibroblasts was also investigated.

Study Design: Thirty-seven POP patients and 23 non-POP postmenopausal patients were included in the POP (study) and non-POP (control) groups, respectively.

Semiparametric odds ratio model for case-control and matched case-control designs.

We propose a semiparametric odds ratio model that extends Umbach and Weinberg's approach to exploiting gene-environment association model for efficiency gains in case-control designs to both discrete and continuous data. We directly model the gene-environment association in the control population to avoid estimating the intercept in the disease risk model, which is inherently difficult because of the scarcity of information on the parameter with the sampling designs. We propose a novel permutation-based approach to eliminate the high-dimensional nuisance parameters in the matched case-control design.

[Fast track surgery accelerates the postoperative rehabilitation and recovery of insulin sensitivity in elective operation for colorectal carcinoma: a randomized controlled clinical trial].

Objective: To investigate the effects of fast track surgery on postoperative insulin sensitivity on the basis of clinical benefits in patients undergoing elective open colorectal resection.

Methods: During May 2008 to December 2008, Seventy patients with colorectal carcinoma requiring colorectal resection were randomized into two groups: a fast track group (35 cases) and a conventional care group (35 cases). All included patients received elective open colorectal resection with combined tracheal intubation and general anesthesia.

Bias correction to secondary trait analysis with case-control design.

In genetic association studies with densely typed genetic markers, it is often of substantial interest to examine not only the primary phenotype but also the secondary traits for their association with the genetic markers. For more efficient sample ascertainment of the primary phenotype, a case-control design or its variants, such as the extreme-value sampling design for a quantitative trait, are often adopted. The secondary trait analysis without correcting for the sample ascertainment may yield a biased association estimator.

Fast track surgery accelerates the recovery of postoperative insulin sensitivity.

Background: Few clinical studies or randomized clinical trial results have reported the impact of fast track surgery on postoperative insulin sensitivity. This study aimed to investigate the effects of fast track surgery on postoperative insulin sensitivity in patients undergoing elective open colorectal resection.

Methods: Controlled, randomized clinical trial was conducted from November 2008 to January 2009 with one-month post-discharge follow-up.

[Genotyping for CYP2C19 with multiplex PCR point mutation screening technology].

Objective: To establish a multiplex PCR point mutation screening technique for the genotyping of CYP2C19.

Methods: Deoxyinosine multiplex-polymerase chain reaction (PCR) primers (DMPs) were designed to detect simultaneously CYP2C19*1,*2,*3 alleles in one PCR tube.

Results: The above technique could detect the genotypes of CYP2C19*1, CYP2C19*2 and CYP2C19*3 successfully.

High CpG island methylator phenotype is associated with lymph node metastasis and prognosis in gastric cancer.

Several studies have found that the promoter CpG island is frequently methylated in gastric cancer. The CpG island methylator phenotype (CIMP) defines concordant methylation of multiple promoter CpG island loci in a subset of gastric cancer. However, the relationship between CIMP and lymph node metastasis in gastric cancer is unknown.

Improving power and robustness for detecting genetic association with extreme-value sampling design.

Extreme-value sampling design that samples subjects with extremely large or small quantitative trait values is commonly used in genetic association studies. Samples in such designs are often treated as "cases" and "controls" and analyzed using logistic regression. Such a case-control analysis ignores the potential dose-response relationship between the quantitative trait and the underlying trait locus and thus may lead to loss of power in detecting genetic association.

[(-)-Epigallocatechin-3-gallate reduces vascular endothelial growth factor expression in gastric cancer cells via suppressing activity].

Objective: To investigate the molecular mechanism involved in the downregulation of vascular endothelial growth factor(VEGF) expression through the suppression of signal transducer and activator of transcription 3(Stat3) by(-)-Epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG).

Methods: After human gastric cancer cells (AGS) were treated with IL-6 (50 μg/L) and EGCG(0, 5, 10, 25 or 50 μmol/L), the expression levels of VEGF, total Stat3(tStat3), and activated Stat3(pStat3) in tumor cells were examined by Western blotting. The influence of the inhibitor of Stat3 pathway on the IL-6-induced VEGF expression was investigated.

On information coded in gene-environment independence in case-control studies.

For analysis of case-control genetic association studies, it has recently been shown that gene-environment independence in the population can be leveraged to increase efficiency for estimating gene-environment interaction effects in comparison with the standard prospective analysis. However, for the special case in which data on the binary phenotype and genetic and environmental risk factors can be summarized in a 2 × 2 × 2 table, the authors show here that there is no efficiency gain for estimating interaction effects, nor is there an efficiency gain for estimating the genetic and environmental main effects. This contrasts with the well-known result assuming that rare phenotype prevalence and gene-environment independence in the control population for the same data can lead to efficiency gain.

Representations of efficient score for coarse data problems based on Neumann series expansion.

We derive new representations of the efficient score for coarse data problems based on Neumann series expansion. The representations can be applied to both ignorable and nonignorable coarse data. An approximation to the new representation may be used for computing locally efficient scores in such problems.

(-)-Epigallocatechin-3-gallate inhibits VEGF expression induced by IL-6 via Stat3 in gastric cancer.

Aim: To demonstrate that (-)-Epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG) inhibits vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) expression and angiogenesis induced by interleukin-6 (IL-6) via suppressing signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (Stat3) activity in gastric cancer.

Methods: Human gastric cancer (AGS) cells were treated with IL-6 (50 ng/mL) and EGCG at different concentrations. VEGF, total Stat3 and activated Stat3 protein levels in the cell lyses were examined by Western blotting, VEGF protein level in the conditioned medium was measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, and the level of VEGF mRNA was evaluated by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR).

Non-invasive prenatal diagnosis of trisomy 21 by reverse transcriptase multiplex ligation-dependent probe amplification.

Background: Obtaining fetal DNA or RNA by either chorionic villus sampling (CVS) or amniocentesis is currently, the gold standard prenatal diagnosis. However, these invasive procedures carry risk of miscarriage. A reliable method for non-invasive prenatal diagnosis (NIPD) has long been sought to reduce the risk of miscarriage.