RESUMO
Cancer is a major burden of disease worldwide. Each year, tens of millions of people are diagnosed with cancer around the world, and more than half of the patients eventually die from it. The present work aims to bring out the epidemiological profile of cancer and to find out the association that would exist between the gender of patients, the tumor localization and the vital prognosis. Methodology: The present work consists in a retrospective study carried out in an oncology centre in Rabat, considered to be representative of the private sector in the northern region of Morocco, and based on a sample of 1756 cases of cancer treated during the period January 2005-December 2006. Results: Among the 1756 studied cases, 58% are females and 42% are males. The mean age of patients is 53±15 years old. The repartition of patients according to the localization shows that breast cancer is the most frequent with 24% of cases, followed by cervix cancer with 11% and lung cancer with 8%. The study shows that the higher number of deaths occurred in lung cancer patients with 21% of all deaths in our sample. Nevertheless, the highest lethality is observed for the liver cancer with 37.5%. The results also show that males display a significantly higher risk for bladder, lung and stomach cancers, whereas females have significantly higher risk for thyroid, skin and gall bladder cancers. The calculation of death risk by localization shows that liver and lung cancers present the worst vital prognosis. Finally, we demonstrated that the survival length after beginning of treatment depends on cancer localization. Conclusion: More efforts should be made by health authorities in Morocco to fight against cancer in especially those with bad vital prognosis.
RESUMO
Background: Both vitamin D deficiency and Gestational diabetes (GDM) are common among Saudis. The vitamin D receptor (VDR) gene is a candidate gene for susceptibility to several diseases. Studies on association between VDR polymorphisms and risk of GDM in Saudi populations are yet inconclusive. Objective: to evaluate the association between Vitamin D receptor gene polymorphisms and genetic susceptibility to gestational diabetes (GDM) in pregnant Saudis. Subjects & Methods: thirty pregnant Saudi women with diabetes (17 GDM and 13 type 2 diabetes (T2DM) with past history of GDM) were compared to 14 pregnant women with normal glucose tolerance. Patients and controls were recruited at their third trimester from Taibah University medical unit from January to July 2010. Genomic DNA was extracted and the genotyping related to vitamin D receptor BsmI gene single – nucleotide polymorphisms was carried out by polymerase chain reaction and restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) analysis. Results: The gene frequency, allele frequency and carriage rate of the VDR polymorphism BsmI did not differ between patients and controls with no significant association with any clinical parameters. The 25 hydroxyl Vitamin D level but not the gene frequency was a significant predictor of history of abortion among diabetics (OR=- 0.29, 95% CI -0.081-0.0, p=0.047). Conclusions: Vitamin D receptor BsmI gene polymorphisms is not associated with gestational diabetes among Saudis. Further studies of other Vitamin D receptor gene polymorphism in combination are required.
RESUMO
Findings in 325 consecutive primary seminal analysis done at the Infertility Treatment Centre of IPGMR, are discussed. The clinical profile of the infertile couples was recorded. Semen was examined for quantity, sperm density, motility and morphology. An attempt was also made to correlate past illnesses with the quality of semen. 65 patients (20%) showed azoospermia, while 29 (8.9%) showed sperm count of less than 10 million/ml. History of past illnesses which contribute to azoospermia/oligospermia was obtained in 46% of azoospermia cases compared to only 10% in subjects showing sperm count of over 10 million/ml. Commonest association between azoospermia and past illness was found in the case of small-pox, where out of 31 subjects with past history of small-pox, 15 showed complete azoospermia, one showed sperm density of less then 10 million/ml.