No association between global DNA methylation in peripheral blood and lung cancer risk in nonsmoking women: results from a multicenter study in Eastern and Central Europe.

Alterations in global DNA methylation have been suggested to play an important role in cancer development. We evaluated the association of global DNA methylation in peripheral blood with the risk of lung cancer in nonsmoking women from six countries in Central and Eastern Europe. This multicenter case-control study included primary, incident lung cancer cases diagnosed from 1998 to 2001 and controls frequency-matched for geographic area, sex, and age.

Identification of a novel susceptibility locus at 13q34 and refinement of the 20p12.2 region as a multi-signal locus associated with bladder cancer risk in individuals of European ancestry.

Candidate gene and genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified 15 independent genomic regions associated with bladder cancer risk. In search for additional susceptibility variants, we followed up on four promising single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that had not achieved genome-wide significance in 6911 cases and 11 814 controls (rs6104690, rs4510656, rs5003154 and rs4907479, P < 1 × 10(-6)), using additional data from existing GWAS datasets and targeted genotyping for studies that did not have GWAS data. In a combined analysis, which included data on up to 15 058 cases and 286 270 controls, two SNPs achieved genome-wide statistical significance: rs6104690 in a gene desert at 20p12.

Effect of occupational exposures on lung cancer susceptibility: a study of gene-environment interaction analysis.

Background: Occupational exposures are known risk factors for lung cancer. Role of genetically determined host factors in occupational exposure-related lung cancer is unclear.

Methods: We used genome-wide association (GWA) data from a case-control study conducted in 6 European countries from 1998 to 2002 to identify gene-occupation interactions and related pathways for lung cancer risk.

Non-invasive evaluation of proximal vertebral artery stenosis using color Doppler sonography and CT angiography.

Background And Purpose: A reliable and safe diagnostic procedure for vertebral artery (VA) stenosis is needed, but none is generally accepted yet. In our study, we evaluated symptomatic VA stenoses using color Doppler sonography (CDS). CT angiography (CTA) has been employed as a non-invasive reference method.

Outbreaks of epidemic kerato-conjunctivitis in two hospital wards.

The authors analyzed two hospital outbreaks of epidemic keratoconjunctivitis (EKC), one at the Department of Ophthalmology (30 cases) and another one at the Department of Premature Newborns (22 cases). In both outbreaks, EKC was diagnosed in inpatients (16 and 6 respectively), outpatients (5 and 3 respectively), healthcare workers (HCWs) (3 and 5 respectively), and relatives of EKC patients (6 and 8 respectively). Implemented infection control measures included isolation precautions, improved disinfection and hand-washing of both hospital and outpatient department personnel.

Cost effectiveness and cost benefit of viral hepatitis B vaccination in the Slovak Republic.

In our work we tried to evaluate the cost effectiveness (CEA) and cost benefit (CBA) of the vaccination strategy of viral hepatitis B (VHB) vaccination in Slovakia. Retrospectively we analysed the incidence of VHB before and after the vaccination against VHB. From the calculated yearly cost (direct and indirect)--treatment costs and vaccination costs--we tried to calculate the estimated financial costs of vaccination strategy in 2000 (89.

[Influenza and influenza-like acute respiratory diseases in Slovakia in the 1999-2000 season].

Background: Acute respiratory infections (ARI) represent the most frequent cause of morbidity. Their epidemic outbreaks become a severe problem not only in healthcare, but also in economical and social spheres.

Objective: Presentation of epidemiological and virologic characteristics of the 1999-2000 influenza season in Slovakia; their comparison with the same Influenza season in other European countries, as well as with the situation during the preceding season in Slovakia.

Epidemiological features and economic evaluation of a potential chickenpox vaccination strategy in Slovak Republic.

Cost effectiveness and cost benefit of a potential chickenpox vaccination strategy in Slovakia have been evaluated. As a base for comparison with potential vaccination strategy, direct and indirect costs of chickenpox incidence in Slovakia in 1996 were evaluated, using the EPIS data (Epidemiological Information System in Slovak Republic), and official annual analyse of epidemiological situation in Slovakia. According to their estimates, the authors consider the potential chickenpox vaccination as highly cost effective.

Occupational cancer in central European countries.

The countries of central Europe, including Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria, suffer from environmental and occupational health problems created during the political system in place until the late 1980s. This situation is reflected by data on workplace exposure to hazardous agents. Such data have been systematically collected in Skovakia and the Czech Republic since 1977.

An explosive outbreak of Q-fever in Jedl'ové Kostol'any, Slovakia.

An explosive epidemic of Q-fever that occurred at Jedl'ové Kostol'any (Nitra District) in April 1993, had an unusual mode of transmission, unprecedented in Slovakia. The submitted case-reports can be very instructive for both health workers and the lay public. The bulk of infection was spread in the local pub through contaminated garments of animal attendants assisting abortions and births of goats in a large capacity breeding centre of Gemersan Co.

Family outbreak of alimentary tick-borne encephalitis in Slovakia associated with a natural focus of infection.

A family outbreak of tick-borne encephalitis involving 7 people, all of them hospitalized, was observed in the district of Povazská Bystrica (central Slovakia). The disease was associated with the drinking of unboiled goat milk and tick-borne encephalitis virus was recovered from Ixodes ricinus ticks collected from places where goats were grazing.