Primary series COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness among healthcare workers in Albania, February-December 2021.

Background: Healthcare workers have experienced high rates of morbidity and mortality from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Methods: A prospective cohort study was conducted in three Albanian hospitals between 19 February and 14 December 2021. All participants underwent polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and serological testing at enrolment, regular serology throughout, and PCR testing when symptomatic.Vaccine effectiveness (VE) against COVID-19 and against all severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) infections (symptomatic or asymptomatic) was estimated. VE was estimated using a Cox regression model, with vaccination status as a time-varying variable. Findings: In total, 1504 HCWs were enrolled in this study; 70% had evidence of prior SARS-CoV-2 infection. VE was 65.1% [95% confidence interval (CI) 37.7-80.5] against COVID-19, 58.2% (95% CI 15.7-79.3) among participants without prior SARS-CoV-2 infection, and 73.6% (95% CI 24.3-90.8) among participants with prior SARS-CoV-2 infection. For BNT162b2 alone, VE was 69.5% (95% CI 44.5-83.2). During the period when the Delta variant was predominant, VE was 67.1% (95% CI 38.3-82.5). VE against SARS-CoV-2 infection for the full study period was 36.9% (95% CI 15.8-52.7). Interpretation: This study found moderate primary series VE against COVID-19 among healthcare workers in Albania. These results support the continued promotion of COVID-19 vaccination in Albania, and highlight the benefits of vaccination in populations with high levels of prior infection.

Hormonal Receptor, Human Epidermal Growth Factor and Its Association with Breast Cancer Tumor Characteristics in Albania.

AIM: This retrospective study was designed to analyze expression patterns of estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR) and HER2/neu in Albanian patients with breast carcinoma to identify their relationships with tumor size, histological grade (HG), lymph node metastasis and relapse. METHODS: Patients with either biopsy or metastatic relapse were identified. Demographics, tumor characteristics, ER, PR, and HER2/neu status were retrospectively obtained from the medical records of patients treated with breast cancer during 2006-2011. Hormonal receptors and HER2/neu were assessed by immunohistochemistry. Association of ER, PR and HER2/neu with clinicopathological and molecular characteristics were studied using Fisher's test. P value ≤0.05 was considered significant. RESULTS: There were 110 patients included in the study. Mean patient age was 51.08±10.75 years. The overall immunoexpression of ER, PR and HER2/neu were found positive in 76 (69%), 73 (67%), and 16 (41%) patients, respectively. ER- was associated with higher histological grade (24% vs. 9.2%) and PR+ with tumor size (T2, 78.3 vs. 64.3) (p=0.02 and 0.05, respectively). ER and PR expression were significantly decreased in HER2/neu positive cases while HER2/neu levels correlated with tumor size (p=0.03) and nodal metastasis (p=0.03). No association was detected between ER, PR, HER2/neu and relapse. CONCLUSION: A combination of ER, PR and HER2/neu and prognostic factors could be of clinical value by defining subgroups in Albanian breast cancer patients that might benefit from more aggressive treatment.

Hormonal risk factors for ovarian cancer in the Albanian case-control study.

The role of reproductive factors in the aetiology of ovarian cancer had been evaluated in hospital-based case-control study conducted in Albania, providing a total dataset of 283 cases and 1019 controls. Logistic regression models were used to obtain relative risk (OR) estimates. The present results showed that parity had protective effects which increased until the forth birth and the trend in risk was significant (p < 0.01). In each stratum and overall, nulliparous women appeared to be at highly increased risk compared to those who had different number of births (OR=12.5, 95%, CI: 2.4-63.8). Evaluation of early age at menarche and late age at menopause, showed statistically significant increased risk. Furthermore, increased risk was observed between pre-menopausal women and never-married nulliparity women, respectively (OR=1.44 95%, CI: 0.88-2.36; OR=8.98, 95%, CI: 1.44 - 56.14), but ovarian cancer risk was reduced for hysterectomized women. These findings suggest that Albanian women have risk factors similar to women in western countries.