Publications by authors named "Kurmi O"
CAR-T cell therapy in developing countries: how long should we wait?
J Immunother Cancer
December 2024
Low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) face a significant burden of cancer prevalence and incidence. However, the survival rates for patients with cancer in these regions are notably lower than those in high-income countries, primarily due to late diagnosis and limited access to advanced treatments. Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy has demonstrated promising outcomes in certain terminally ill patients with cancer, yet access to this treatment remains limited in LMICs, including Nepal.
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- - The study focuses on non-fatal overdoses among homeless individuals, emphasizing that understanding risk factors can help prevent fatal overdoses.
- - Researchers analyzed electronic medical records of 1221 patients, finding that 16% (194 individuals) had experienced a non-fatal overdose, often involving multiple substances like heroin, paracetamol, and benzodiazepines.
- - Key risk factors identified include being female, white, aged 36-45, and having chronic physical or mental health issues, suggesting that targeted prevention strategies could reduce overdose rates, such as providing overdose awareness training and access to naloxone.
Introduction: The Nepal Family Cohort study uses a life course epidemiological approach to collect comprehensive data on children's and their parents' environmental, behavioural and metabolic risk factors. These factors can affect the overall development of children to adulthood and the onset of specific diseases. Among the many risk factors, exposure to air pollution and lifestyle factors during childhood may impact lung development and function, leading to the early onset of respiratory diseases.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Air pollution has several negative health effects. Particulate matter (PM) is a pollutant that is often linked to health adversities. PM2.
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- Obesity rates have significantly increased since 1975, and this study aims to explore the potential link between air pollution and obesity, specifically its effects on body weight and related health conditions like non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.
- The research will adhere to systematic review guidelines and involves extensive database searches, with findings being aggregated using statistical models to ensure accurate results.
- Ethical approval isn't required for this type of analysis, and results will be shared in peer-reviewed journals and with healthcare stakeholders to inform public health policies.
Objective: Monitoring trends in key population health indicators is important for informing health policies. The aim of this study was to examine population health trends in Canada over the past 30 years in relation to other countries.
Methods: We used data on disability-adjusted life years (DALYs), years of life lost (YLL), years lived with disability, life expectancy (LE), and child mortality for Canada and other countries between 1990 and 2019 provided by the Global Burden of Disease Study.
Introduction: The epidemiological and demographic transitions are leading to a rising burden of multimorbidity (co-occurrence of two or more chronic conditions) worldwide. Evidence on the burden, determinants, consequences and care of multimorbidity in rural and urbanising India is limited, partly due to a lack of longitudinal and objectively measured data on chronic health conditions. We will conduct a mixed-methods study nested in the prospective Andhra Pradesh Children and Parents' Study (APCAPS) cohort to develop a data resource for understanding the epidemiology of multimorbidity in rural and urbanising India and developing interventions to improve the prevention and care of multimorbidity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Chronic cough is a common troublesome condition, but it is unclear whether dry or productive chronic cough and sex, impacts the burden of cough differently.
Methods: The Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging is a nationally generalizable, stratified random sample of adults aged 45-85 years. Chronic cough was identified based on a self-reported daily cough in the last 12 months assessed at baseline (2011-2015) and follow-up (2015-2018).
Article Synopsis
- Lip, oral, and pharyngeal cancers pose significant global health challenges, making it essential to analyze their burden for effective health policies.
- The study utilized data from the 2019 Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study to assess cancer incidence, mortality, and life years lost across 204 countries, linking these to socio-demographic factors.
- Findings revealed approximately 370,000 cases and 199,000 deaths for lip and oral cavity cancer, and 167,000 cases and 114,000 deaths for other pharyngeal cancers in 2019, with smoking being the leading risk factor for these cancers, especially in low and middle SDI regions.
Air pollution is a leading modifiable risk factor for various cardio-respiratory outcomes globally, both for children and for adults. Children are particularly susceptible to the adverse effects of air pollution due to various physiological and behavioural factors. Children are at a higher risk of outcomes such as acute respiratory infections, asthma and decreased lung function due to air pollution exposure; the risk varies in different geographical regions, depending on the source of air pollution, duration of exposures and concentration.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Existing evidence on long-term ambient air pollution (AAP) exposure and risk of cardio-respiratory diseases in China is mainly on mortality, and based on area average concentrations from fixed-site monitors for individual exposures. Substantial uncertainty persists, therefore, about the shape and strength of the relationship when assessed using more personalised individual exposure data. We aimed to examine the relationships between AAP exposure and risk of cardio-respiratory diseases using predicted local levels of AAP.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted insufficiencies and gaps within healthcare systems globally. In most countries, including high-income countries, healthcare facilities were over-run and occupied with too few resources beyond capacity. We carried out a systematic review with a primary aim to identify the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on the presentation and treatment of stroke globally in populations≥65 years of age.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Chronic cough is a common troublesome condition and accounts for a high burden on quality of life. Previous data investigating the mortality associated with chronic cough has been derived in patients with chronic bronchitis. No data exists on chronic dry cough.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHousehold Air Pollution, Passive Smoking, and Lung Cancer: Do We Know Enough about This Conundrum?
Am J Respir Crit Care Med
November 2022
Background: Out of over 3 billion people exposed to household air pollution (HAP), approximately 4 million die prematurely, most from cardiorespiratory diseases. Although many recent studies have reported adverse effects of HAP on cardiovascular outcomes, the findings are inconsistent.
Objectives: The primary aim of this systematic review is to critically appraise the published studies and report the pooled summary of the findings on the association between HAP and cardiovascular outcomes, particularly in LMICs.
Background: Chronic cough is a common troublesome condition, but risk factors for developing chronic cough are poorly understood. The aim of this study was to understand the relationship between mental health disorders, personality traits and chronic cough.
Methods: The Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging is a prospective, nationally generalisable, random sample of adults aged 45-85 years at baseline recruited between 2011 and 2015, and followed-up 3 years later.
Background: Specialist homelessness practices remain the main primary care access point for many persons experiencing homelessness. Prescribing practices are poorly understood in this population.
Objective: This study aims to investigate prescribing of medicines to homeless persons who present to specialist homelessness primary care practices and compares the data with the general population.
Article Synopsis
- Injury is a significant public health concern in Europe, with notable differences in injury death rates and disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) across sub-regions and countries, particularly between Eastern, Central, and Western Europe.
- The study analyzed GBD 2019 data from 44 European countries over 20 years, focusing on injury mortality and DALY rates by cause and sex while assessing inequalities based on country comparisons.
- Findings reveal that Eastern Europe has the highest injury death rates (80 deaths per 100,000), while Italy has the lowest injury DALY rate, indicating that males experience greater disparities in injury impact than females.
Background: Household air pollution from the incomplete combustion of solid cookfuels in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) has been largely ignored as a potentially important correlate of stunting. Our objective was to examine the association between solid cookfuel use and stunting in children aged <5 y.
Methods: We used data from 59 LMICs' population-based cross-sectional demographic and health surveys; 557 098 children aged <5 y were included in our analytical sample.
Article Synopsis
- The GBD 2019 study systematically estimated the global cancer burden, providing data on incidence, mortality, and disability to help address cancer worldwide.
- In 2019, an estimated 23.6 million new cancer cases and 10 million cancer deaths occurred globally, marking significant increases in rates since 2010, with cancer becoming a leading cause of both death and disability-adjusted life years (DALYs).
- The impact of cancer varied across sociodemographic index (SDI) quintiles, with higher SDI areas seeing more new cases, while middle SDI areas experienced more deaths and DALYs, highlighting disparities in cancer burden.