The lower serum immunoglobulin G2 level in severe cases than in mild cases of pandemic H1N1 2009 influenza is associated with cytokine dysregulation.

The majority of patients with pandemic influenza H1N1 2009 had mild illness, but some, including those with no risk factors for severe disease, may succumb to this infection. Besides viral factors such as the D222/225G substitution of the hemagglutinin, host factors such as IgG2 subclass deficiency recently was reported to be associated with severe disease in a cohort of Australian patients besides other known risk factors, including underlying chronic illness, extremes of age, and pregnancy. We conducted a case-control study of 38 Asian patients with respiratory failure due to severe pandemic influenza and compared the results to those for 36 mild cases.

The lessons of SARS in Hong Kong.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is a novel coronavirus infection which broke out in Hong Kong in March 2003. Princess Margaret Hospital was designated to manage this new, mysterious and serious disease. Healthcare workers had to work under extremely stressful and often risky conditions to care for patients.

Low prevalence of subclinical severe acute respiratory syndrome-associated coronavirus infection among hospital healthcare workers in Hong Kong.

We recruited 688 hospital healthcare workers who cared for patients with severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and did not develop the disease in the Hong Kong outbreak in 2003. A questionnaire survey was conducted and serum samples were collected for SARS-associated coronavirus (SARS-CoV) antibody. The high-risk procedures performed and the types of unprotected exposures were recorded for analysis.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome-related diarrhea.

Background: Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is an emerging infectious disease and diarrhea has been reported in up to 76% of cases. The purpose of the present paper was to carry out a retrospective study of the clinical and demographic data of SARS patients with diarrhea in Princess Margaret Hospital.

Methods: From 1 to 31 March 2003, hospital records from 240 patients with confirmed SARS were studied.

Prevalence of irritable bowel syndrome in Hong Kong.

Background And Aims: As part of a public education program, the Hong Kong Society of Gastrointestinal Motility studied the prevalence of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) in the community, which was based on the recently published Rome II criteria. The distribution of diarrhea or constipation-predominant IBS subtypes, the prevalence of bowel symptoms and the predictors of health-care seeking were also studied.

Methods: Among 1797 randomly selected respondents, 1000 successful telephone interviews (56%) were conducted from August 2000 to December 2000, using a validated questionnaire in Chinese that looked into demographic data and various bowel symptoms during the past year.