The prevalence of hypertension in population of Keshan disease endemic areas in China, 2009 / 中华地方病学杂志

Objective To survey the prevalence of hypertension in population of Keshan disease endemic areas, in order to provide a scientific basis for prevention and control of hypertension in rural areas of our country.Methods One hundred and twenty villages were selected as the survey places based on case-finding from 15 provinces including Gansu, Hebei, Henan, Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning, Shaanxi, Shandong, Shanxi, Hubei, Yunnan,Sichuan, Guizhou, Chongqing and Mongolia in 2009.The subjects were permanent residents in the survey places.Basic situation of all subjects was collected through the questionnaire survey and blood pressure was measured by a clinician.Diagnostic criterion for hypertension was based on the Chinese Guidelines for the Management of Hypertension.Results Totally 33 558 subjects aged 18 and over were surveyed, including 8 699 hypertension patients.The positive rate of hypertension was 25.9％ (8 699/33 558), among that 26.3％ (3 532/13 408) were males,and 25.6％ (5 167/20 150) were females.The positive rate of hypertension increased with age (x2 =3 348.325, P ＜0.05).In the classification of hypertension, the proportion of stage 1, 2 and 3 hypertension and isolated systolic hypertension was 31.8％ (2 770/8 699), 26.1％ (2 273/8 699), 17.2％ (1 492/8 699) and 24.9％ (2 164/8 699),respectively.Conclusions The positive rates of hypertension in Keshan disease endemic areas are higher than those of the national average (18.8％).Hypertension is a serious public health problem in Keshan disease endemic areas.The strategy of hypertension prevention and control should be formulated for remote rural areas.

Positive Rates of 2009 Novel Influenza A (H1N1) was High in School-Aged Individuals: Significance in Pandemic Control

In this study, data from a pandemic H1N1 outbreak in Korea were analyzed according to time, geography (districts), and age. A total of 252,271 samples collected nationwide were referred to the Greencross Reference Laboratory from June 2009 to February 2010 for H1N1 confirmation testing. Of these samples, 105,300 (41.7%) were H1N1-positive. With time, positivity was highest (57.0%) from October 26 - November 1 (4 weeks after Chuseok). The positive rates among districts show the highest value in Ulsan City (63.1%) and the lowest in Gyeongnam Province (32.8%). The positive rates for ages 0-2, 3-5, 6-11, 12-17, 18-20, 21-30, 31-40, 41-50, 51-60, and > 60 yr were 17.0%, 33.1%, 56.2%, 55.5%, 55.3%, 41.5%, 28.2%, 30.5%, 31.1%, and 16.8%, respectively, indirectly indicating propagation of H1N1 through schools. Pandemic control should involve school-targeted strategies.

A Study on the Prevalence of HBsAg and Anti-HCV in Patients with Hepatocellular Carcinoma: Comparative Study with Healthy Blood Donors / 대한임상병리학회지

BACKGROUND: The aim of this study was to evaluate the positive rates of hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) and antibody to hepatitis C virus (anti-HCV) in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), and to estimate the risk of developing HCC in association with HBsAg or anti- HCV positivity. METHODS: HBsAg and anti-HCV (anti-c22-3 and anti-c200) were tested by enzyme immunoassay in 892 patients with HCC from 1991 to 1994. Data regarding the prevalence of these hepatitis markers in 4,269 healthy blood donors were obtained from the Central Blood Center of the Korea Red Cross and used for case-control study. RESULTS: The positive rate of HBsAg was 72.3% (645/892) in patients with HCC and 2.7% (117/ 4,269) in blood donors, while that of anti-HCV was 7.6% (68/892) in patients with HCC and 0.3% (11/4,269) in blood donors. Six hundreds and thirty-six among 892 patients with HCC (71.3%) were only positive for HBsAg, 59 (6.6%) were only anti-HCV positive, and 9 (1.0%) were positive for both HBsAg and anti-HCV. The odds ratio (with 95% confidence interval: CI) comparing patients with HCC to healthy blood donors were 17.8 (CI: 4.7-61.5) for HBsAg positive, 11.9 (CI: 2.8-52.2) for anti-HCV positive, and 208.9 (CI: 18.6-2,345.7) for both HBsAg and anti-HCV positive. The risk estimates for both HBsAg and anti-HCV positve were not different from those for HBsAg positive or anti-HCV positive because the confidence interval of patients with both HBsAg and anti-HCV positive overlapped that of patients with HBsAg positive, or that of patients with anti-HCV positive. CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggested that HBsAg was more important risk factor of HCC than anti-HCV and there was no interaction between HBsAg and anti-HCV in the development of HCC.