Effects of smoking on healing response to non-surgical periodontal therapy: A multilevel modelling analysis

Wan CP, Leung WK, Wong MCM, Wong RMS, Wan P, Lo ECM, Corbet EF. Effects of smoking on healing response to non-surgical periodontal therapy: a multilevel modelling analysis. J Clin Periodontol 2009; 36: 229-239. doi: 10.1111/j.1600-051X.2008.01371.x. Abstract Aim: To investigate the factors predicting non-surgical periodontal treatment responses using multilevel multiple regression. Material and Methods: Forty men (mean 45.6 years) were recruited; 20 were smokers. A 12-month reduction in probing pocket depth (PPD) and gain in probing attachment level (PAL) of 5814 sites were analysed, with 594 being initially diseased sites (initial PPD≥5 mm). Results: Variance Component models showed that site-level variations contributed about 70-90% of the total variance. About a 10% reduction of the total variations of PPD reduction in initially diseased sites was achieved with the inclusion of the 10 predictors in the multilevel multiple regression. Multilevel multiple regression showed that three predictors, subject level: non-smokers; tooth-level: anterior teeth; and site level: sites without plaque at baseline, were significantly associated with a greater reduction in PPD in initially diseased sites over the 12-month study period (p<0.05). No consistent predictor was found for PAL gain. Conclusion: Multilevel analysis was applied on periodontal treatment response data. Smokers showed less favourable PPD reduction at deep sites after non-surgical periodontal therapy. © 2009 John Wiley & Sons A/S.postprin

Peritoneal computed tomography: A diagnostic tool for genital oedema in patients on peritoneal dialysis

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Healing response after non-surgical therapy on smokers with chronic periodontitis

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Non-surgical periodontal treatment response in male smokers with chronic periodontitis

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Adjunctive hyaluronic acid gel in non-surgical treatment of periodontitis

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Validation of the disease-specific components of the Kidney Disease Quality of Life-36 (KDQOL-36) in Chinese patients undergoing maintenance dialysis

AIM: The aim of this study was to evaluate the validity, reliability and sensitivity of the disease-specific items of the Kidney Disease Quality of Life-36 (KDQOL-36) in Chinese patients undergoing maintenance dialysis. METHODS: The content validity was assessed by content validity index (CVI) in ten subjects. 356 subjects were recruited for pilot psychometric testing. The internal construct validity was assessed by corrected item-subscale total correlation. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to confirm the factor structure. The convergent validity was assessed by Pearson's correlation test between the disease specific subscale scores and SF-12 version 2 Health Survey (SF-12 v2) scores. The reliability was assessed by the internal consistency (Cronbach's Alpha coefficient) and 2-week test-retest reliability (intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC)). The sensitivity was determined by performing known group comparisons by independent t-test. RESULTS: The CVI on clarity and relevance was â ¥ 0.9 for all items. Corrected item- total correlation scores were â ¥0.4 for all, except an item related to problems with access site. CFA confirmed the 3-factor structure of the disease-specific component of the KDQOL-36. The correlation coefficients between the disease-specific domain scores and the SF-12 v2 physical and mental component summary scores ranged from 0.328 to 0.492. The reliability was good (Cronbach's alpha coefficients ranged from 0.810 to 0.931, ICC ranged from 0.792 to 0.924). Only the effect subscale was sensitive in detecting differences in HRQOL between haemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis patients, with effect size = 0.68. CONCLUSION: The disease-specific items of the KDQOL-36 are a valid, reliable and sensitive measure to assess the health-related quality of life of Chinese patients on maintenance dialysis.published_or_final_versio

Malaysian nasal polyps: eosinophil or neutrophil-predominant

Eosinophil-type nasal polyp (NP) is common in Western population. This aim of this study was to determine the histology type of NP among different Malaysian ethnic groups. A total of 122 chronic rhinosinusitis with nasal polyposis (CRSwNP) patients were retrospectively enrolled and demographic data was recorded. The histological slides were retrieved. The number of eosinophils and non-eosinophils were counted and average number of inflammatory cells for each high power field was calculated. Eosinophil-predominant was seen in 32.8% of patients and 67.2% was non-eosinophil-predominant. Phenotypes of NP significantly showed an association with ethnicity (x² = 8.322; p < 0.05). A total of 78.9% of Chinese nasal polyps showed non-eosinophil predominant, while Malay and Indian nasal polyps revealed 71.9% and 40.7% of non-eosinophilic phenotype, respectively. Our study showed that Malaysian population had a non-eosinophilic phenotype of nasal polyps. There was a significant association in Malaysian ethnicity with the highest percentage in Chinese population

An Autonomous Sailboat for Environment Monitoring

The marine environment is constantly at risk from coastal urbanization. The deterioration of coastal and marine environments is evidenced by the decline of mangroves and the biodiversity of such environments and increasing recurrences of algal and jellyfish blooms. There is a lack of environmental data especially in developing countries such as Malaysia to determine the sustainability and impact of the current development on coastal resources. We developed an autonomous sailboat that utilizes the Internet of things technology to collect and analyze ocean water quality data for local authorities to obtain insights into the sustainable development of coastal resources. The USV is equipped with sensors, microcontrollers, and a wireless communication module based on ZigBee standards to allow sending water quality data to a gateway located at the shore. The data collected by the USV will be processed by a cloud server and visualized through user applications

Identification of serum miR-139-3p as a non-invasive biomarker for colorectal cancer

Aberrant levels of circulating microRNAs are potential biomarkers for the early detection of colorectal cancer. The aim of this study was to study miR-139-3p and miR-622 in serum as a non-invasive biomarker for colorectal cancer diagnosis. We applied quantitative polymerase chain reaction to determine the levels of miR-139-3p and miR-622 in 42 pairs of tumor and adjacent non-tumor tissues, and in serum samples of 117 patients and 90 control subjects. Our results showed that miR-139-3p was silenced whereas miR-622 was overexpressed in colorectal cancer. Similarly, serum miR-139-3p level was significantly lower in colorectal cancer patients than in control subjects whereas miR-622 was more frequently detectable in patients. ROC analysis showed that AUC of miR-139-3p was 0.9935, with a sensitivity of 96.6% and specificity of 97.8%. Serum miR-139-3p level showed high sensitivity and specificity for both early and late stage CRCs and proximal and distal CRCs. Detectable serum miR-622 showed a sensitivity of 87.5% and specificity of 63.5% for discriminating CRC patients, but the sensitivity dropped for late stage patients (72.7%). We also included analyses of the blood CEA level for comparing the diagnostic performance of these blood-based biomarkers. The median level in CRC patients (3.6 ng/ml) was significantly higher than that in control (1.8 ng/ml). The AUC value of CEA in diagnosing CRC patients was 0.7515. CEA showed a positive correlation with tumor stage and age of patients and its level was higher in male. Collectively, serum miR-139-3p has strong potential as a promising non-invasive biomarker in colorectal cancer detection.published_or_final_versio