Attitudes of cairo university medical students toward smoking: the need for tobacco control programs in medical education

Tobacco smoking rates are increasing in developing countries and so are tobacco-related chronic diseases. Reported figures from the WHO show rates of smoking in Egypt as high as 20% but limited information is available about smoking specifically among physicians and medical students. Final-year medical students of Cairo University were surveyed regarding their tobacco behavior and attitudes using a modified Global Health Professions Student Survey. We approached 220 students by randomly selecting clinical units into which they were assigned and requested completion of the survey. Ever users of some form of tobacco comprised 46.7% of students sampled, current users of cigarettes comprised 17.4%, and current users of water pipe 'sheesha' comprised 17.6%. The vast majority [87.7%] of students believed that smoking is a public health problem in Cairo and supported restriction of tobacco. Yet, only 58.5% stated that they were taught it is important for physicians to provide tobacco education materials to patients. Among ever users of cigarettes, 54.4% believed health professionals do not serve as health role models for patients, and only a small percentage of all students [34.2%] stated that they had received some form of training on smoking cessation in their medical curriculum to be able to instruct patients. A high rate of smoking was revealed among medical students in Cairo. Overall, approximately 23.4% of students were currently smoking cigarettes and/or sheesha, and 46.7% were ever users of some form of tobacc o. A formal antitobacco program for medical students should be incorporated into their medical curriculum to change the attitudes of medical students and overcome the anticipated increase in chronic diseases in Egypt

Differences in molecular pathologic characteristics of pancreatic adenocarcinoma between Egyptian and Moroccan patients

Pancreatic cancer has not been well studied, especially in developing countries. We studied the variations in genetic mutations in pancreatic adenocarcinoma between Moroccan and Egyptian populations. The molecular pathology of 30 tumors from a large hospital in Casablanca, Morocco were examined and compared with the findings of 44 tumors from the Gharbiah Governate in Egypt. K-ras mutations in codons 12 and 13 in addition to p53 mutations in exons 5-8 were evaluated. Overall, differences in the rates of K-ras mutations were not statistically significant [48.00 and 34.09%, respectively]; however differences in rates of p53 mutations were statistically significant with p53 mutations more common in Moroccan tumors than in Egyptian tumors [46.67 and 16.28%, respectively]. G ->T mutations of the K-ras gene were most commonly seen Egyptian tumors, whereas G -> A mutations were the most common type of mutations in Moroccan tumors. Logistic regression analysis showed that a p53 mutation in any exon as well as a p53 mutation in exon 5 predicted the country of residence and those mutations occurred more frequently in Moroccan patients. Our study shows that differences exist within the Arab population in the molecular pathology of both the K-ras and p53 genes. Further studies are necessary to clarify the differences in molecular pathways of pancreatic cancer in the Middle East and to investigate the role of environmental and/or genetic factors related to those pathways