ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Diabetes mellitus (DM) is one of the most important chronic diseases in public health, thus optimal management of this condition is crucial. For this purpose, oral hypoglycemic agents (OHA) are commonly prescribed with their consistent use being mandatory to maintain adequate blood glucose levels. We aimed to evaluate the compliance with OHA in patients with DM, and to determine the factors associated with compliance. METHODS: From March 2006 to December 2007, we enrolled patients with type 2 DM who were newly diagnosed or had discontinued OHAs for more than four weeks. For OHA, diamicron was prescribed to the participants and response to medication was evaluated by physicians after 12 weeks. Compliance was defined as patients taking diamicron continuously or stopping the medication due to well-controlled blood sugar levels. Demographic characteristics, anthropometric measurements, fasting glucose, and lipid profiles were collected and analyzed. RESULTS: The mean age of our 326 subjects was 56.0+/-9.9 years and 74.5% was defined to be compliant. Logistic regression analysis adjusting for age and sex revealed that combined medication use (odd ratio [OR], 2.03; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.04-3.97) and diabetes-related nutritional education (OR, 2.08; 95% CI, 1.08-4.03) (P<0.05) were factors associated with compliance with OHA. CONCLUSIONS: About three quarters of the DM patients in our study, using diamicron for the first time, showed compliance after 12 weeks of treatment. Concomitant medications and diabetes-related nutrition education were associated with compliance.
Subject(s)
Humans , Blood Glucose , Chronic Disease , Compliance , Diabetes Mellitus , Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2 , Education , Fasting , Gliclazide , Glucose , Hypoglycemic Agents , Logistic Models , Patient Education as Topic , Public HealthABSTRACT
Clopidogrel, a thienopyridine derivative, is an anti-platelet agent that acts as an antagonist of the platelet adenosine diphosphate receptor and considered for essential prophylaxis for intracoronary stent thrombosis in the treatment of ischemic heart disease. Clopidogrel is considered as safe as aspirin but a few cases of severe hematologic adverse reactions associated with clopidogrel had been reported such as neutropenia, aplastic anemia, thrombocytopenic purpura, and thrombocytopenia. We report a rare case of neutropenia induced by clopidogrel in chronic renal failure in a patient who underwent percutaneous coronary intervention.
Subject(s)
Humans , Adenosine Diphosphate , Anemia, Aplastic , Aspirin , Blood Platelets , Kidney Failure, Chronic , Myocardial Ischemia , Neutropenia , Purpura, Thrombocytopenic , Pyridines , Stents , Thrombocytopenia , Thrombosis , TiclopidineABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: The molecular pathology of cervical cancer associated with human papillomavirus infection is presently unclear. In an effort to clarify the multiple interactions of a number of genes involved in cervical carcinogenesis, the gene expression profiles and pathogenic cellular processes between human cervical squamous cell carcinoma and normal cervix were investigated by mRNA differential display and the Gene Ontology analysis. METHODS: Cervical cancer biopsies were obtained from patients at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, The Catholic University of Korea. The disease status was assigned according to the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics. The squamous cell carcinoma tissue samples of 3 patients invasive cancer stage II (1), IV (2) were investigated by mRNA differential display. As a control, we used a common reference that was mixed with equal amount of RNA obtained from 17 normal cervix to obtain variation- independent control. Also, we constructed hierarchical functional structures using gene ontology. Then, the specific function groups were correlated with differential gene expression profiles. In addition, specific gene expression patterns in several tissue samples were investigated by using DDRT-PCR analysis. RESULTS: Differentially expressed 191 genes were identified in tumor samples. Of these genes, 128 were up-regulated and 63 were down-regulated above 1.5-fold. The gene expression profiles were classified into 46 mutually dependent function sets and organized into sub-function sets depending on the cervical cancer pathway, suggesting the potentially significant genes of unknown function affected by carcinogenesis pathway. The genes related to metabolism, signal transduction, and chaperon activity were significantly up-regulated. In contrast, significant down-regulations were shown in nucleic acid binding activity, tumor suppressor and structural activity. Reliable gene expression data shows the validation of profiling method for studying the cervical cancer-specific pathway. CONCLUSION: The specific functions assigned to each expressed gene were correlated with gene ontology for the establishment of a powerful cervical carcinogenesis pathway. The results suggest that the differentially regulated cellular process profiles have an important impact on discovery of pathogenic pathway in human cervical squamous cell carcinoma and provide the potentially significant genes of unknown function. Also, the gene ontology analysis can overcome the complexity of the expression profiles of mRNA differential display via a cellular process level approach. Thereby, a valuable prognostic candidate gene with real relevance to disease-specific pathogenesis can be found at the cellular process levels.