A Prospective Study of Adolescents' Peer Support: Gender Differences and the Influence of Parental Relationships

This longitudinal study investigates parent and child predictors of adolescents' perceived social support from peers. Adolescents (285) and their parents filled out surveys when students were 11 and 15 years of age. Parent reports of their own social support and child reports of parental support to them, depression, and self-esteem were used as predictors of adolescents' peer social support. Path analyses revealed functional dissimilarity in the predictive model, for boys and girls. For boys and girls, the amount of spousal support parents' reported impacted the amount of parent to child support that children reported. For boys, this relationship impacted their perceptions of peer support indirectly through depression. However, for girls, parents' own supportive relationships directly impacted both their self-esteem and depression, above and beyond parent to child support, which then impacted girls' peer social support.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/45288/1/10964_2004_Article_229992.pd

Angiotensin-converting enzyme gene polymorphism is associated with anemia in non small-cell lung cancer.

The angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) plays an important role not only in the regulation of vascular homeostasis but also in stimulation of hematopoiesis. We aimed to evaluate the association between insertion/deletion (I/D) polymorphism of the ACE gene and anemia at the time of the diagnosis. We enrolled 75 patients with non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and 85 age- and sex-matched healthy control participants. The I/D polymorphism of ACE was identified by using polymerase chain reaction from peripheral blood samples. Statistical analyses were performed with SPSS for Windows. The distributions of the ACE genotypes and alleles are similar in patients and in healthy participants (P=0.29 and P=0.08, respectively). In patients with NSCLC, 34 (45.3%) had anemia; of whom 3 (8.8%) had genotype II, 24 (70.6%) had genotype ID, and 7 (20.6%) had genotype DD (P=0.001). The patients with the II and ID genotypes had more frequent anemia at the time of the diagnosis (odds ratio = 6.02; P=0.001). Our findings suggest that I/D polymorphism of the ACE gene may influence the development of anemia in patients with NSCLC

A retrospective analysis on first-line bevacizumab, cetuximab, and panitumumab-containing regimens in patients with ras-wild metastatic colorectal cancer: A collaborative study by Turkish oncology group (tog)

Purpose: To compare the efficacy and adverse effect profiles of the first-line treatment of patients with KRAS wild type metastatic colorectal cancer (CRC) in Turkey who were treated based on regimens including bevacizumab, cetuximab and panitumumab. Methods: This retrospective multicenter observational study involved a total of 238 patients who received chemotherapy in combination with either bevacizumab or cetuximab or panitumumab as first-line therapy for KRAS wild-type metastatic colorectal cancer. Patients with full medical records having pathological diagnosis of CRC adenocarcinoma were included in the study. The demographic, laboratory, histopathological and clinical characteristics of the patients were determined, and three groups were compared based on the study variables. Results: The mean age of the entire sample (n=238) was 58±11 years, 64% of which were male. The most frequent tumor localization was the rectum (37%) and G2 was the most common tumor grade (59.7%). About 63% of the patients had metastatic disease at diagnosis, with the most common site of metastasis being lung (14.7%) and liver (52.5%). Overall survival (OS) was 63.9%, while 1-, 3- And 5-year survival rates were 91.7, 56.6 and 36.9%, respectively. The expected mean survival was 49.1 months (95% CI, 42.9-55.3). The 1-, 3- And 5-year progression-free survival (PFS) rates following first-line treatment were 65.3, 26.1 and 5.6%, respectively, while disease free survival (DFS) in patients without metastasis at diagnosis was 68.5%. An analysis carried out disregarding which treatment the patients received (FOLFOX or FOLFIRI) revealed that a panitumumab-containing combination resulted in poorer prognosis compared to bevacizumab or cetuximab-containing combination (p<0.001). With regard to the adverse effect profile, the most common adverse effects were neuropathy and neutropenia in patients receiving FOLFOX-bevacizumab; neutropenia and perforation in patients receiving FOLFIRI-bevacizumab; rash and pustular infection in patients receiving FOLFIRI-cetuximab; and diarrhea in patients who received FOLFIRI-panitumumab combination. Conclusion: is the first multicenter study performed in Turkey evaluating the response to treatment and adverse effects in patients with KRAS wild-type metastatic colorectal cancer. © 2019 Zerbinis Publications. All Rights Reserved

The combinations of TNF alpha-308 and IL-6-174 or IL-10-1082 genes polymorphisms suggest an association with susceptibility to sporadic late-onset Alzheimer's disease

Objective - Single nucleotide polymorphisms in the regulatory regions of the cytokine genes for tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF alpha), interleukin (IL)-6 and IL-10 have been suggested to influence the risk of Alzheimer's disease (AD) with conflicting results. Aim-To investigate the TNF alpha-308, IL-6-174 and IL-10-1082 gene polymorphisms as susceptibility factors for AD. Methods - We analyzed genotype and allele distributions of these polymorphisms in 101 sporadic AD patients and 138 healthy controls. Results-Heterozygotes (AG) or combined genotype (AG + AA) for IL-10-1082 were associated with approximately two-fold increase in the risk of AD. Carriers of A alleles of both TNF alpha-308 and IL-10-1082 had 6.5 times higher risk for AD in comparison with non-carriers. Concomitant presence of both mutant TNF alpha-308 A and IL-6-174 C alleles raised three-fold the AD risk, whereas there was no notable risk for AD afflicted by IL-6-174 polymorphism alone. Conclusion-Our results suggest that TNF alpha and IL-10 promoter polymorphism might be a risk factor for AD. The combined effects of TNF alpha-308, IL-6-174 and IL-10-1082 variant alleles may be more decisive to induce functional differences and modify the risk for AD