Multi-drug resistance 1 genetic polymorphism and prediction of chemotherapy response in Hodgkin's Lymphoma

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The human multi-drug resistance gene (<it>MDR1</it>), which encodes the major trans-membrane transporter P-glycoprotein (P-gp), was found to be associated with susceptibility to cancer and response to chemotherapy. The C3435T Polymorphism of <it>MDR1 </it>gene was correlated with expression levels and functions of P-gp. Here, we studied the association between <it>MDR1 </it>C3435T polymorphism and susceptibility to Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) and patient's response to ABVD chemotherapy regimen.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>a total of 130 paraffin embedded tissue samples collected from HL patients were analyzed to identify the C3435T polymorphism. As a control group, 120 healthy subjects were enrolled in the study. The C3435T Polymorphism was genotyped by polymerase chain reaction and restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) method. Data analysis was carried out using the statistical package SPSS version 17 to compute all descriptive statistics. Chi-square and Fisher exact tests were used to evaluate the genotype distribution and allele frequencies of the studied polymorphism.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>these studies revealed that the frequency of T allele was significantly higher in HL patients compared to the controls (P < 0.05). In addition, the frequency of CT and TT genotypes were also significantly higher in HL patients compared to the controls (P < 0.05). No association between C3435T polymorphism and response to ABVD was detected among HL patients (P > 0.05).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>these results suggest that <it>MDR1 </it>C3435T polymorphism might play a role in HL occurrence; however this polymorphism is not correlated with the clinical response to ABVD.</p

Waterpipes and Electronic Cigarettes: Increasing Prevalence and Expanding Science

[Image: see text] The prevalence of noncigarette tobacco product use is on the rise across the globe, especially for waterpipes (also known as hookah, narghile, and shisha) and electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes). The scientific literature reveals that waterpipe tobacco smoking is associated with exposure to a variety of toxicants that can cause short- and long-term adverse health events. In contrast, there is far less evidence of health harms related to e-cigarette use, although the variety of products in this category makes it difficult to generalize. We searched the PubMed database for all publications on waterpipes and e-cigarettes from January 2000 to March 2014. The number of publications on waterpipes rose in a slow, linear pattern during this time, while the number of publications on e-cigarettes showed exponential growth. The different trends suggest there may be more interest in studying a novel nicotine product (the e-cigarette) over a traditional tobacco product (the waterpipe). We posit that, although the specific research needs for these products are different, public health would be served best by a more equitable research approach. Scientists should continue to devote attention to understanding the unknown long-term health effects of e-cigarettes and their potential to serve as harm reduction or smoking cessation tools while simultaneously investigating how to reduce waterpipe smoking given that it exposes users to toxicants known to cause harm to health. Recent regulatory action in the United States, which proposes to include waterpipes and e-cigarettes under some of the same regulations as tobacco cigarettes, makes such research particularly timely