Risk of prostate cancer and its correlation with different biochemical parameters in non diabetic men

Background: It has been hypothesized that men with long term diabetes have a lower risk of prostate cancer then non-diabetic men. Whether diabetes influences level of biomarkers such as prostate specific antigen (PSA), which is involved in the detection of prostate cancer is, unknown. In view of the aforementioned controversial literature, it was decided to evaluate this relation-ship in non-diabetic men. We evaluated the correlation between fasting glucose, prostate specific antigen and different biochemical lipid profile parameters with serum uric acid and serum creatinine in non-diabetic male between age group 40-61 years.Methods: Association between fasting serum glucose , different lipid parameters, serum uric acid, serum creatinine and prostate specific antigen in 83 non-diabetic males aged 40 to 61years were studied retrospectively. Glucose and lipid parameters and serum creatinine, serum uric acid were measured on fully automated analyser using standard reagent kits. Serum prostate specific antigen was measured by TOSOH-AIA-360, immunoassay method.Results: Correlations between different biochemical parameters were determined. Prostate specific antigen were negatively correlated with HDL (r= -0.22, p= 0.03) in age group 40-61 years. At the same fasting blood sugar were correlated positively(r= 0.34, p= 0.02 ) with prostate specific antigen in age group 51-60 years , but not in age group 40-50 years.Conclusion: We concluded that serum HDL (high density lipoprotein) was negatively associated and FBS (fasting blood sugar) was positively associated with risk of prostate cancer. We also suggest that in men of this age group a low HDL level should not be ignored while assessing prostate cancer risk especially if accompanied with an elevated FBS level even in the upper normal range.

Development of a Novel Rapid Immunodiagnostic Kit Based on Flagellar 40 kDa Antigen Epitope for the Detection of Typhoid Fever in Indian Patients

To aid the clinical diagnosis of typhoid fever in India, where most hospitals and primary health centres have no facilities for culture, we report on the development of a novel and rapid immunodiagnostic kit for the direct detection of Salmonella Typhi—specific IgG antibodies against S. Typhi flagellar H antigen. The disease often does not show a specific clinical picture, and can be confused with other febrile illness such as malaria, dengue fever and Staphylococcus aureus. To overcome the problem of cross reactivity specific epitope of the flagellar H antigen was immobilised on the testing kit strip eliminating chances of cross reactivity and false positive results thereby increasing the specificity of the test. Since the immunodiagnostic kit, uses the flagellar H antigen from bacteria present in our country, the antibodies present in the serum of patients of our country will have maximum binding affinity, enhancing the sensitivity of our test kit. The immunodiagnostic kit on analysis gave a positive result with clinically diagnosed typhoid positive patient serum and negative results were obtained with the sera of clinically diagnosed malaria, abscess of Staphylococcus aureus and Visceral leishmaniasis (Kala-azar) patients

Unique pattern of mutations in β-thalassemia patients in Western Uttar Pradesh

Context: β-thalassemia is one of the most common heterogeneous inherited single gene disorders. The disease results from one or more of 380 different mutations in the β-globin gene. Uttar Pradesh (U.P.) is the most populous state of India, comprising various ethnic groups and Bareilly is one of the largest cities situated in Western U.P. Aims: To examine the prevalence of five common β-thalassemian mutations: Intervening Sequence IVS 1-5 (c. 92 + 5 G > C), codon 8/9 (c. 27_28insG), codon 41/42 (c. 124_127delTTCT), IVS 1-1 (c. 92 + 1 G > T) and codon 26 G-A (c. 79G > A) in Western U.P. Settings and Design: Patients attending camps organized by the Thalassemia Society, Bareilly were selected for the study. Materials and Methods: A total of 48 blood samples were collected from the patients of transfusion dependent β-thalassemia from July 2011 to May 2012. All the samples were analyzed for five common mutations by using the Amplification Refractory Mutation System (ARMS)-hot start-polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technique. Results: Among the five common mutations prevalent in India, we were able to detect all except codon 26 G-A (c. 79G > A), which is prevalent in northeast India. These four mutations accounted for 58% of the total number of our patients. The IVS 1-5 (G-C) was found to be the most common mutation with a frequency of 46% and the 2 nd most common mutation was Fr8/9 (+G) with a frequency of 21%. The frequency of other mutations was IVS1-1 (12%) and Cd 41/42 (4%). Conclusion: This study provides evidence that the pattern of mutations in Western U.P. is different from the rest of India and even from the neighboring states (Delhi and Punjab). To the best of our knowledge, mutation Fr8/9, the 2 nd most common mutation in our study has never been reported to be so common from anywhere in India. Some mutations, which are prevalent in other regions are absent in our region (mutation for ε-globin). Hence, these findings can be called unique to Western U.P