Incidence and Risk Factors for Cardiovascular Disease in Diabetic patients in Hong Kong

Free Paper Competition - Poster Presentation 22 (abstract)Conference Theme: Stay Caring, Go Excelling in Primary CareINTRODUCTION Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) is the major cause of morbidity and mortality in patients with diabetes mellitus (DM). The study aimed to calculate the 5-year incidence and identify risk factors for developing CVD in Chinese diabetic patients. METHOD A retrospective cohort study was conducted on 119,276 Chinese adult diabetic patients without CVD history and receiving care in the Hospital Authority primary care clinics on or before 1 January 2009. They were followed up until 31 December 2013. Multiple imputation was used to deal with the missing data. Risk factors including socio-demographics and clinical parameters associated with the incidence of CVD were examined using Cox Proportional Hazard regression. Sensitivity analysis was conducted by using the cohort with complete case. RESULTS Five-year incidence rate (1,000 person-years) of first CVD event (n=9,753) among diabetic patients was 17.6. Risk factors associated with CVD were age (Hazard ratio (HR):1.073), male (HR:1.310), smoker (HR:1.219), longer duration of DM (HR:1.014), insulin used (HR:1.425), higher stage of Chronic Kidney Disease (e.g. stage 5 vs stage 1 HR:4.430) and higher clinical parameters including body mass index (HR:1.022), systolic blood pressure (HR:1.002), total cholesterol to HDL cholesterol ratio (HR:1.056) and Urine Albumin/Creatinine ratio (HR:1.001). All of these risk factors were statistically significant (p <0.05). Sensitivity analysis showed the similar results except insulin use, hemoglobin A1c(HbA1c), systolic blood pressure and Triglyceride. DISCUSSION Identification of CVD-related risk factors and early intervention play a crucial role in preventing CVD complications in diabetic patients. HbA1c, which reflects the control of DM, was not found to be a significant risk factor from this study. Further study is needed to explore the effect of controlling of HbA1c on CVD risk

The regional distribution of different types of influenza receptors in cultured human alveolar epithelial cells and correlation with in vitro infection

BACKGROUND: Sialic acid (Sia) linked glycoproteins are the classical influenza receptors for influenza virus haemagglutinin to bind. The distribution of Sia on cell surfaces is one of the determinants of host tropism, and understanding its expression on human cells and tissues is important for understanding influenza pathogenesis. Previous research has shown the differences in apical versus basolateral infection and release of different influenza virus from polarized epithelial cells1 and correlated this with sialic acid distribution in the human respiratory tract. Moreover, mass spectrometric analysis was recently employed to elucidate the glycans present in the tissue in a higher resolution in human lung.2 The objective of this study was to examine in detail the distribution of these Sia-linked glycans at the cellular level by the use of confocal microscopy …link_to_OA_fulltex

Evidence of cisplatin-induced senescent-like growth arrest in nasopharyngeal carcinoma cells

Cellular senescence is a programmed cell response leading to growth arrest in human diploid fibroblasts. We have shown that a nasopharyngeal carcinoma cell line, CNE1, following treatment by the DNA-damaging agent cisplatin, can undergo cellular senescent-like growth arrest, similar to fibroblasts, judged by cellular morphological changes and the expression of senescence-associated β-galactosidase (SA-β-gal). This senescent-like change was dose related; at 0.5 μg/ml, the percentage of cisplatin-induced SA-β-gal-positive cells was high (40-96%), and the staining was intense. Higher doses (1.0 and 2.0 μg/ml) of cisplatin induced lower SA-β-gal expression (30-70%), and the process was irreversible. This cisplatin- induced cellular senescent-like response was not due to the inhibition of telomerase activity. Our results indicate that cellular senescent-like pathways exist in nasopharyngeal carcinoma cells and can be induced by cisplatin. Our evidence suggests that cellular senescent-like responses may be a cellular protection mechanism that acts differently in response to different degrees of cellular damage.published_or_final_versio