ABSTRACT
Background/Aim: Colorectal carcinoma (CRC) carries a high incidence of morbidity and mortality.Prognosis is related to nodal metastasis and stage. Clusterin is a widely distributed glycoproteinwith not yet fully understood functions. Clusterin may be overexpressed in some tumours or underexpressed in other tumours. The aim behind this study is to examine the relation of clusterincytoplasmic immunostaining to tumour characteristics, disease relapse, and survival in CRC. Materialsand Methods: Paraffin blocks of 133 CRCs were retrieved from the Department of Pathology,King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Immunostaining was done using antibody toclusterin. Staining expression in 10% of malignant cells was used as a cut-off to determine lowimmunostaining and high immunostaining. Statistical tests were used to evaluate the association ofclusterin immunostaining with clinicopathological parameters. Results: Immunohistochemical resultsshowed clusterin low immunostaining in CRC and nodal metastases. No association was foundbetween clusterin immunostaining and tumour grade, age, tumour invasiveness, distant metastases,vascular invasion, nodal metastases, relapse, and survival. Conclusion: Our study showed low clusterinimmunostaining in CRC with lack of association with prognostic indicators in CRC. These resultsraise the controversy of understanding the role of clusterin in CRC. Further molecular studies arerequired to explore more about possible mechanisms of clusterin association with tumorigenicity,apoptosis, tumour growth progression, local and vascular invasion, and metastasis of CRC.
ABSTRACT
Background: Sleep problems and poor sleep quality are important issues for medical students. This study aimed to investigate the sleep patterns, measure the prevalence of poor sleep quality, and identify the predictors of poor sleep among medical students in King Khalid University (KKU), Saudi Arabia. Methods: This cross-sectional study enrolled 318 medical students during October– November, 2015. Participants were selected by convenience sampling and data were collected using self-administered questionnaires to obtain information regarding socio-demographic variables and indicators of sleep quality. Results: The overall mean sleep quality score was 6.79 with a standard deviation of 3.06. Poor sleep quality was reported by 74.2% students. Significantly high mean sleep quality scores (Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index) were observed for students with very poor subjective sleep quality (mean = 10.50, SD = 2.58), least sleep efficiency (mean = 11.21, SD = 2.23), shorter sleep duration (mean = 7.83, SD = 2.88), sleep onset latency more than 30 minutes (mean = 7.82, SD = 2.53), sleeping after midnight (mean = 7.53, SD = 2.95), and use of sleep aiding medication (mean = 8.78, SD = 3.5). Significant differences were observed between good sleepers and poor sleepers regarding these sleep characteristics. Poor sleep was predicted by sleep behaviours such as going to sleep after midnight (AOR = 2.18, 95% CI: 1.20, 3.94) and sleep duration of less than seven hours (AOR = 7.49, 95% CI: 4.24, 13.22). Conclusion: Medical students of KKU have poor sleep quality. Longer sleep latency, going to sleep after midnight, and shorter sleep duration are important problems in this group.