Pathway-based analysis tools for complex diseases: a review.

Genetic studies are traditionally based on single-gene analysis. The use of these analyses can pose tremendous challenges for elucidating complicated genetic interplays involved in complex human diseases. Modern pathway-based analysis provides a technique, which allows a comprehensive understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying complex diseases. Extensive studies utilizing the methods and applications for pathway-based analysis have significantly advanced our capacity to explore large-scale omics data, which has rapidly accumulated in biomedical fields. This article is a comprehensive review of the pathway-based analysis methods-the powerful methods with the potential to uncover the biological depths of the complex diseases. The general concepts and procedures for the pathway-based analysis methods are introduced and then, a comprehensive review of the major approaches for this analysis is presented. In addition, a list of available pathway-based analysis software and databases is provided. Finally, future directions and challenges for the methodological development and applications of pathway-based analysis techniques are discussed. This review will provide a useful guide to dissect complex diseases.

Laryngeal aerodynamic analysis in assisting with the diagnosis of muscle tension dysphonia.

OBJECTIVE/HYPOTHESIS: To estimate the aerodynamic multiparameters for patients with muscular tension dysphonia (MTD) and evaluate voice aerodynamic analysis for assisting the diagnosis of this disorder. STUDY DESIGN: A prospective study. METHODS: Voice aerodynamic parameters, including subglottal pressure (SGP) level, glottal resistance (GR), mean airflow rate (MFR), and maximum phonation time (MPT), for 26 MTD patients and 27 normal adults were analyzed using receiver operating characteristics (ROC) analysis and multivariate logistic regression. RESULTS: For male samples, MTD patients had higher SGP (P=0.001), higher GR (P=0.012), lower MFR (P=0.042), and shorter MPT (P=0.027), whereas for female samples, the difference between cases and controls was statistically significant only in SGP (P<0.001) and MPT (P<0.001). ROC analysis showed that the threshold of 8.175 cm H(2)O for SGP achieved a good classification for MTD, with an adequate sensitivity (76.9%) and the perfect specificity (100%). Finally, multivariate logistic regression established a credible model (with SGP and MPT as the predictors) for classifying MTD, with a 92.5% percentage correct. CONCLUSIONS: This analysis indicates that aerodynamics evaluation could help the diagnosis of MTD patients, jointly with medical history scrutiny, physical examination, fibrolaryngoscopy, and/or videoendostroboscopy.