ABSTRACT
Association between HLA antigens and cervical squamous cell carcinoma has been described in several populations. To verify whether HLA-DRB1 and DQB1 diversity is related to cervical cancer in Puerto Rican women, 40 cases and 50 controls were HLA typed. DRB1*16 (POR=2.89) and DRB1*11 (POR=1.74) were positively associated with cervical cancer. A negative association was found with DRB1*01 (POR=0.52), DRB1*04 (POR=0.60), DRB1*14 (POR=0.33), DRB1*15 (POR=0.65), DQB1*04 (POR=0.33), DQB1*05 (POR=0.64) and DQB1*06 (POR=0.65). We suggest that HLA Class H polymorphisms are involved in genetic susceptibility to cervical cancer in Puerto Rican women. These results should be confirmed in studies with larger sample size to preclude the possibility of false positive observations.
Subject(s)
Adult , Aged , Aged, 80 and over , Female , Humans , Middle Aged , Histocompatibility Antigens Class II/genetics , Uterine Cervical Neoplasms/genetics , Uterine Cervical Neoplasms/immunology , Cross-Sectional Studies , Uterine Cervical Neoplasms/epidemiology , Puerto Rico/epidemiology , Risk FactorsABSTRACT
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the accuracy of glucometers in assessing glucose levels in outpatients. The investigation consisted in the analysis of retrospective validation data (obtained at the Clinical Laboratory of the Puerto Rico Medical Services Administration) and the analysis of data obtained from forty outpatients. Glucose concentration was obtained from these outpatient samples using the patients' glucometers and a clinical laboratory analyzer (hexokinase method). Statistical analysis included descriptive and correlation measures and t-test. Results revealed that accurate glucose values were obtained by the glucometers utilized in both the validation process and the outpatients (POCT) procedure. The investigation also demonstrated the need by outpatients to receive proper training in handling their glucometers.
Subject(s)
Humans , Blood Chemical Analysis/instrumentation , Blood Glucose/analysis , Point-of-Care Systems/standards , Blood Chemical Analysis/methods , Clinical Laboratory Techniques , Outpatients , Quality Control , Reference Standards , Reproducibility of ResultsABSTRACT
En este documento se describe la experiencia adquirida durante mas de ocho anos en la realizacion de programas de atencion primaria de salud mental destinados a extender los servicios de la especialidad en Cali, Colombia. A modo de referencia basica se describen las circunstancias anteriores a la iniciacion de esta experiencia, asi como las condiciones, recursos y el sistema de salud. Ademas, se hace un resumen de las ultimas investigaciones mas pertinentes llevadas a cabo por el grupo de Cali en el campo epidemiologico y psicometrico, en la medida en que se relacionan con esta investigacion. Se ha llegado a la conclusion de que los agentes de atencion primaria disponen de mas tiempo para charlar con los pacientes; su contacto clinico es mas directo y lo establece una persona que entiende bien el idioma del paciente, sus problemas y curcunstancias psicosociales