Genetic Testing for Alpha and Beta Thalassemia in Children in Quanzhou Region of Fujian Province in China / 中国实验血液学杂志

OBJECTIVE@#To analyze the genotypes and distribution of thalassemia in children in Quanzhou Region so as to provide reference for the prevention and control of thalassemia.@*METHODS@#A total of 1 302 children with suspected thalassemia were collected from January 2014 to April 2020 in Quanzhou Region. The deletional α-thalassemia was detected by Gap-PCR, and DNA reverse dot blot (RDB) hybridization was used to detect α- and β-thalassemia mutations.@*RESULTS@#In the 1 302 cases, 667 cases were identified as thalassemia carriers, and the positive detection rate was about 51.23%. Among them, 380 cases of α-thalassemia gene were detected, and --@*CONCLUSION@#There are various genotypes of thalassemia in children in Quanzhou Region, and many children with thalassemia major or intermedia. Therefore, further prevention and control of thalassemia need to be strengthened for reducing the birth of thalassemia major or intermedia.

Prognostic value of the lymph node ratio in stage III colorectal cancer / 癌症

The nodal stage of colorectal cancer is based on the number of positive nodes. It is inevitably affected by the number of removed lymph nodes, but lymph node ratio can be unaffected. We investigated the value of lymph node ratio in stage III colorectal cancer in this study. The clinicopathologic factors and follow-up data of 145 cases of stage III colorectal cancer between January 1998 and December 2008 were analyzed retrospectively. The Pearson and Spearman correlation analyses were used to determine the correlation coefficient, the Kaplan-Meier method was used to analyze survival, and the Cox proportional hazard regression model was used for multivariate analysis in forward stepwise regression. We found that lymph node ratio was not correlated with the number of removed lymph nodes (r = -0.154, P = 0.065), but it was positively correlated with the number of positive lymph nodes (r = 0.739, P < 0.001) and N stage (r = 0.695, P < 0.001). Kaplan-Meier survival analysis revealed that tumor configuration, intestinal obstruction, serum carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) concentration, T stage, N stage, and lymph node ratio were associated with disease-free survival of patients with stage III colorectal cancer (P < 0.05). Multivariate analysis showed that serum CEA concentration, T stage, and lymph node ratio were prognostic factors for disease-free survival (P < 0.05), whereas N stage failed to achieve significance (P = 0.664). We confirmed that lymph node ratio was a prognostic factor in stage III colorectal cancer and had a better prognostic value than did N stage.

The etiological identification of an aseptic encephalitis outbreak (ten cases) in a hospital of Xiamen city, 2011 / 中华预防医学杂志

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To identify the etiology of an aseptic encephalitis outbreak (ten cases) in a hospital of Xiamen city from 11 to 17 May, 2011.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>A total of ten patients' throat swabs, anal swabs and cerebrospinal fluid were collected and detected by RT-PCR for pan-enterovirus. The samples containing detectable pan-enterovirus were tested by PCR with genotype-specific general primers located in VP1 region of enterovirus genotype A, B and C (HEV-A, B and C). The PCR products of VP1 segment were purified and sequenced, and phylogenetic analysis was performed. Meanwhile, the pathogens in those samples were isolated in Vero cell culture. Homologous analysis of VP1 sequences were carried out for the cultured virus samples and the original clinical samples to identify the outbreak etiology.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>Among the ten cases, seven cases were positive for pan-enterovirus nucleic acid. When tested by genotype-specific PCR, the throat and anal swab samples from those 7 patients were positive with HEV-B VP1 primers. Meanwhile, the HEV-B VP1 segments were sequenced and phylogenetic analyzed, which indicated the seven cases were all infected by enterovirus Echo 30. The sequences from those samples had homology of 95.3% - 97.1% with the epidemic strains in Zhejiang, 2004. Out of the seven cases, the sequences of XM2, XM3, XM4, XM8 throat swab samples and XM3, XM6 throat samples showed 99.4% - 100.0% homology which were different from the sequence of XM1, and the homology was 92.8% - 93.4%. Furthermore, the viruses were isolated using Vero cells from XM1, XM2, XM3, XM4 and XM8 throat swab samples, and the VP1 sequence showed more than 99.9% homology with the original specimens.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>The local outbreak of aseptic encephalitis was caused by Echo 30 of enterovirus genotype B, and the epidemic strains may have different genetic background.</p>