Mikkeli Osteoporosis Index Identifies Fracture Risk Factors and Osteoporosis and Intervention Thresholds Parallel with FRAX

Osteoporosis Index (MOI) was developed from Fracture Index (FI), a validated fracture risk score, to identify also osteoporosis. MOI risk factors are age, weight, previous fracture, family history of hip fracture or spinal osteoporosis, smoking, shortening of the stature, and use of arms to rise from a chair. The association of these risk factors with BMD was examined in development cohorts of 300 Finnish postmenopausal women with a fracture and in a population control of 434 women aged 65–72. Validation cohorts included 200 fracture patients and a population control of 943 women aged 58–69. MOI identified femoral neck osteoporosis in these cohorts as well as the Osteoporosis Self-Assessment Tool (OST). In the pooled fracture cohort, the association of BMI-based FRAX fracture risk with MOI was good. After BMD measurement, MOI identified well FRAX hip fracture risk-based Intervention Thresholds (ITs) (AUC 0.74–0.90)

Distinct regulation of tonsillar immune response in virus infection

Cataloged from PDF version of article.Background: The relationships between tonsillar immune responses, and viral infection and allergy are incompletely known. Objective To study intratonsillar/nasopharyngeal virus detections and in vivo expressions of T-cell- and innate immune response-specific cytokines, transcription factors, and type I/II/III interferons in human tonsils. Methods: Palatine tonsil samples were obtained from 143 elective tonsillectomy patients. Adenovirus, bocavirus-1, coronavirus, enteroviruses, influenza virus, metapneumovirus, parainfluenza virus, rhinovirus, and respiratory syncytial virus were detected using PCR. The mRNA expression levels of IFN-α, IFN-β, IFN-γ, IL-10, IL-13, IL-17, IL-28, IL-29, IL-37, TGF-β, FOXP3, GATA3, RORC2, and Tbet were directly analyzed by quantitative RT-PCR. Results Fifty percentage of subjects reported allergy, 59% had ≥1 nasopharyngeal viruses, and 24% had ≥1 intratonsillar viruses. Tonsillar virus detection showed a strong negative association with age; especially rhinovirus or parainfluenza virus detection showed positive association with IFN-γ and Tbet expressions. IL-37 expression was positively associated with atopic dermatitis, whereas IFN-α, IL-13, IL-28, and Tbet expressions were negatively associated with allergic diseases. Network analyses demonstrated strongly polarized clusters of immune regulatory (IL-10, IL-17, TGF-β, FOXP3, GATA3, RORC2, Tbet) and antiviral (IFN-α, IFN-β, IL-28, IL-29) genes. These two clusters became more distinctive in the presence of viral infection or allergy. A negative correlation between antiviral cytokines and IL-10, IL-17, IL-37, FOXP3, and RORC2 was observed only in the presence of viruses, and interestingly, IL-13 strongly correlated with antiviral cytokines. Conclusions: Tonsillar cytokine expression is closely related to existing viral infections, age, and allergic illnesses and shows distinct clusters between antiviral and immune regulatory genes. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Tobacco control efforts in the Gulf cooperation council countries: achievements and challenges

This paper reports a review into the current state of tobacco use, governance and national commitment for control, and current intervention frameworks in place to reduce the use of tobacco among the populations of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member states and Yemen. It further reviews structured policy-oriented interventions (in line with the MPOWER package of 6 evidence-based tobacco control measures) that represent government actions to strengthen, implement and manage tobacco control programmes and to address the growing epidemic of tobacco use. Our findings show that tobacco control in the GCC countries has witness real progress over the past decades. These are still early days but they indicate steps in the right direction. Future investment in implementation and enforcement of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, production of robust tobacco control legislation and the establishment of universally available tobacco cessation services are essential to sustain and strengthen tobacco control in the GCC region

Faculty Council Meetings

Two Faculty Council Meetings were conducted on 13th May 2016 and 05th August 2016, to approve and acknowledge paperwork on Academic Matters, Research & Post Graduate Matters and Administrative Affairs