Oral Cancer Awareness and its Determinants among a Selected Malaysian Population

Objective: To assess oral cancer awareness, its associated factors and related sources of information among a selected group of Malaysians. Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted on all Malaysian ethnic groups aged >= 15 years old at eight strategically chosen shopping malls within a two week time period. Data were analysed using chi-square tests and multiple logistic regression. Significance level was set at alpha<0.05. Results: Most (84.2%) respondents had heard of oral cancer. Smoking was the most (92.4%) recognized high risk habit. Similar levels of awareness were seen for unhealed ulcers (57.3%) and red/white patches (58.0%) as signs of oral cancer. Age, gender, ethnicity, marital status, education, occupation and income were significantly associated with oral cancer awareness (p<0.05). Conclusions: There was a general lack of awareness regarding the risk habits, early signs and symptoms, and the benefits of detecting this disease at an early stage. Mass media and health campaigns were the main sources of information about oral cancer. In our Malaysian population, gender and age were significantly associated with the awareness of early signs and symptoms and prevention of oral cancer, respectively.Article Link: http://koreascience.or.kr/article/ArticleFullRecord.jsp?cn=POCPA9_2013_v14n3_195

Impact of primary kidney disease on the effects of empagliflozin in patients with chronic kidney disease: secondary analyses of the EMPA-KIDNEY trial

Background: The EMPA KIDNEY trial showed that empagliflozin reduced the risk of the primary composite outcome of kidney disease progression or cardiovascular death in patients with chronic kidney disease mainly through slowing progression. We aimed to assess how effects of empagliflozin might differ by primary kidney disease across its broad population. Methods: EMPA-KIDNEY, a randomised, controlled, phase 3 trial, was conducted at 241 centres in eight countries (Canada, China, Germany, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, the UK, and the USA). Patients were eligible if their estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) was 20 to less than 45 mL/min per 1·73 m2, or 45 to less than 90 mL/min per 1·73 m2 with a urinary albumin-to-creatinine ratio (uACR) of 200 mg/g or higher at screening. They were randomly assigned (1:1) to 10 mg oral empagliflozin once daily or matching placebo. Effects on kidney disease progression (defined as a sustained ≥40% eGFR decline from randomisation, end-stage kidney disease, a sustained eGFR below 10 mL/min per 1·73 m2, or death from kidney failure) were assessed using prespecified Cox models, and eGFR slope analyses used shared parameter models. Subgroup comparisons were performed by including relevant interaction terms in models. EMPA-KIDNEY is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT03594110. Findings: Between May 15, 2019, and April 16, 2021, 6609 participants were randomly assigned and followed up for a median of 2·0 years (IQR 1·5–2·4). Prespecified subgroupings by primary kidney disease included 2057 (31·1%) participants with diabetic kidney disease, 1669 (25·3%) with glomerular disease, 1445 (21·9%) with hypertensive or renovascular disease, and 1438 (21·8%) with other or unknown causes. Kidney disease progression occurred in 384 (11·6%) of 3304 patients in the empagliflozin group and 504 (15·2%) of 3305 patients in the placebo group (hazard ratio 0·71 [95% CI 0·62–0·81]), with no evidence that the relative effect size varied significantly by primary kidney disease (pheterogeneity=0·62). The between-group difference in chronic eGFR slopes (ie, from 2 months to final follow-up) was 1·37 mL/min per 1·73 m2 per year (95% CI 1·16–1·59), representing a 50% (42–58) reduction in the rate of chronic eGFR decline. This relative effect of empagliflozin on chronic eGFR slope was similar in analyses by different primary kidney diseases, including in explorations by type of glomerular disease and diabetes (p values for heterogeneity all &gt;0·1). Interpretation: In a broad range of patients with chronic kidney disease at risk of progression, including a wide range of non-diabetic causes of chronic kidney disease, empagliflozin reduced risk of kidney disease progression. Relative effect sizes were broadly similar irrespective of the cause of primary kidney disease, suggesting that SGLT2 inhibitors should be part of a standard of care to minimise risk of kidney failure in chronic kidney disease. Funding: Boehringer Ingelheim, Eli Lilly, and UK Medical Research Council

Metal removal from industrial waste by hydrochloric acid

Leaching of metals from industrial solid waste in hydrochloric acid, HCl solution was studied. In this study, the significant of parameters such as HCl concentration, temperature, liquid to solid ratio and leaching time on the removal percentage of metal impurities were investigated using response surface methodology (RSM) with central composite design (CCD). The ANOVA study concluded that the quadratic model was fitted well to the 27 experimental runs based on p-value (<0.0001), R2 (0.9876) and Adj-R2 (0.9731). This study also revealed that the liquid to solid ratio was the most significant factor for the leaching of metal impurities compared to HCl concentration for this specific industrial solid waste. However, temperature and leaching time showed no significant impact on the leaching rate of metal impurities. Under suitable conditions, a high removal percentage of metal (88 %) was readily achieved at condition of 6 M HCl at 70 °C with liquid to solid ratio of 10 over a leaching period of 70 mins

Medical staff’s posture on airflow distribution and particle concentration in an operating room

During a surgical procedure, each of the medical staffs would have different postures. Supporting medical staff such as anaesthesiologist would stand in upright condition with straighten-forearm, while medical staff that is performing surgical procedures is in bent-forearm posture. The positioning of forearm might interrupt the air supplies from the ceiling-mounted diffuser, that serves to remove the airborne particles from the surgical zone. Consequently, the movement of particles in the surgical zone is affected, and the tendency of particles to fall onto the patient's wound is increased. This situation could elevate the chances of a patient contracting surgical site infections and could increase the risk of death. The present study aims to examine the effects of medical staff's forearm posture on the number of particles falling onto the patient. A simplified computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model of the operating room was developed and validated based on the published data. An RNG k-ϵ turbulence model based on the Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations was used to simulate the airflow, while a discrete phase model was used to simulate the movement of the airborne particles. Results show that bent-forearm of medical staff obstructed the downward airflow to remove the particles released by the medical staff. Approximately 37 particles/m3 accumulated in the chest region of the medical staff. A high particle accumulation is also observed at the gap between the staff's legs due to the stagnant airflow

Numerical investigation of drag force on micro-sized magnetic beads in microchannel with chamber design

Biological cells or bioparticles separation is a primary step in most biological studies. One of the microfluidic bioparticles separation methods is the magnetic-based method. Integrated microfluidic magnetic bioparticle separation device is made up of a microfluidics channel and a magnetic system. From past studies, the design of the microfluidic channel is least discussed in comparison with the magnetic system. To fill this gap, this study has focused on numerical simulation of a microfluidic channel with chamber design and the drag forces experienced by the magnetic beads. Simulation of the microfluidics channel was done with ANSYS Fluent software. The width ratios of trapping chamber and main channel ranged from 1 to 20, the flow rates ranged from 1 μL/min to 100 μL/min, and the bead sizes ranged from 5 μm to 25 μm were used in the numerical investigation. It was discovered that as the width ratio between the trapping chamber and main channel increases, the maximum velocity decreases, causing the Reynold's number to decrease. The pressure drop become greater at higher flow rate. Higher width ratio caused the drag force to reduce at a constant microbead size. At a constant width ratio between the trapping chamber and main channel, larger microbead sizes caused larger drag force. The microfluidic system with width ratio of 20 and flow rate of 1 μL/min produced the lowest drag force, 3.64 x 10 4 pN. Since particle trapping would occur when the magnetic force is larger than the drag force, therefore a high gradient magnetic system which offered high magnetic force was proposed to be integrated with the microfluidics system

Multi-walled carbon nanotubes-agarose gel micro-solid phase extraction for the determination of triazine herbicides in water samples

In this work, a new extraction procedure termed multi-walled carbon nanotubes-agarose gel micro-solid phase extraction (MWCNTs-AG-μSPE) combined with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) was developed and used for the determination of triazine herbicides in water samples. A high performance synthetic adsorbent, MWCNTs-AG, was prepared using a simple stirring method. Different stoichiometric ratios of MWCNTs and agarose were mixed in deionized water for at least 24 h at room temperature in order to obtain agarose solutions with homogeneously mixed MWCNTs. Two selected triazine herbicides, namely, atrazine (ATR) and secbumeton (SEC) were employed as model compounds. Several important parameters, such as the effects of concentration of MWCNTs, type of conditioning solvent, extraction time, type of desorption solvent and desorption time, were comprehensively optimized. Under the optimized conditions, the calibration results showed good linearity with the correlations of determination (r2) in the range of 0.9925-0.9981 for both analytes. Limits of detection (LODs) were found to be 0.319 μg L-1 and 0.340 μg L-1, while the LOQs were found to be 1.064 μg L-1 and 1.136 μg L-1 for ATR and SEC, respectively. High relative recoveries were obtained in the range of 84.9-108% for the analytes with a relative standard deviation of <15.2% (n = 3). The results showed that MWCNTs-AG-μSPE method is superior to AG-μSPE for both the analytes. This new method was successfully applied for the determination of triazine herbicides in selected water samples. Atrazine was found to be present in the lake water sample because it had a signal higher than the LODs and lower than LOQs. The proposed technique proved to be simple and requires relatively short extraction time and low amounts of organic solvents; thus, contributing towards green chemistry

A rapid MCM-41 dispersive micro-solid phase extraction coupled with LC/MS/MS for quantification of ketoconazole and voriconazole in biological fluids

A rapid dispersive micro-solid phase extraction (D-μ-SPE) combined with LC/MS/MS method was developed and validated for the determination of ketoconazole and voriconazole in human urine and plasma samples. Synthesized mesoporous silica MCM-41 was used as sorbent in d-μ-SPE of the azole compounds from biological fluids. Important D-μ-SPE parameters, namely type desorption solvent, extraction time, sample pH, salt addition, desorption time, amount of sorbent and sample volume were optimized. Liquid chromatographic separations were carried out on a Zorbax SB-C18 column (2.1 × 100 mm, 3.5 μm), using a mobile phase of acetonitrile–0.05% formic acid in 5 mm ammonium acetate buffer (70:30, v/v). A triple quadrupole mass spectrometer with positive ionization mode was used for the determination of target analytes. Under the optimized conditions, the calibration curves showed good linearity in the range of 0.1–10,000 μg/L with satisfactory limit of detection (≤0.06 μg/L) and limit of quantitation (≤0.3 μg/L). The proposed method also showed acceptable intra- and inter-day precisions for ketoconazole and voriconazole from urine and human plasma with RSD ≤16.5% and good relative recoveries in the range 84.3–114.8%. The MCM-41-D-μ-SPE method proved to be rapid and simple and requires a small volume of organic solvent (200 μL); thus it is advantageous for routine drug analysis

A rapid MCM-41 dispersive micro-solid phase extraction coupled with LC/MS/MS for quantification of ketoconazole and voriconazole in biological fluids

A rapid dispersive micro-solid phase extraction (D-μ-SPE) combined with LC/MS/MS method was developed and validated for the determination of ketoconazole and voriconazole in human urine and plasma samples. Synthesized mesoporous silica MCM-41 was used as sorbent in d-μ-SPE of the azole compounds from biological fluids. Important D-μ-SPE parameters, namely type desorption solvent, extraction time, sample pH, salt addition, desorption time, amount of sorbent and sample volume were optimized. Liquid chromatographic separations were carried out on a Zorbax SB-C18 column (2.1 × 100 mm, 3.5 μm), using a mobile phase of acetonitrile–0.05% formic acid in 5 mm ammonium acetate buffer (70:30, v/v). A triple quadrupole mass spectrometer with positive ionization mode was used for the determination of target analytes. Under the optimized conditions, the calibration curves showed good linearity in the range of 0.1–10,000 μg/L with satisfactory limit of detection (≤0.06 μg/L) and limit of quantitation (≤0.3 μg/L). The proposed method also showed acceptable intra- and inter-day precisions for ketoconazole and voriconazole from urine and human plasma with RSD ≤16.5% and good relative recoveries in the range 84.3–114.8%. The MCM-41-D-μ-SPE method proved to be rapid and simple and requires a small volume of organic solvent (200 μL); thus it is advantageous for routine drug analysis