No abstract

ABSTRACT. Signal transducer and activator of transcription protein 3 (STAT3) has been implicated in cancer development and is recognized as a type of oncogene. However, association studies of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the STAT3 gene with cancer risk are rare and not available for lung cancer. We examined whether STAT3 polymorphisms are associated with the risk of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Eight SNPs in the STAT3 gene were genotyped by TaqMan assays in 326 NSCLC cases and 432 controls in a Chinese population. Significant decreased risk of NSCLC was observed for carriers of minor alleles rs4796793 (odds ratio (OR) = 0.68, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.51-0.

A screening instrument’s ability to provide clinicians with consistent and reproducible information is crucial to intervention. Despite widespread acceptance and clinical use of the Kujala Anterior Knee Pain Scale (AKPS) in orthopedics and sports medicine, few studies have reported on its reliability and no such studies have concentrated on child or adolescent samples exclusively, segments of the population for which this instrument is often used. The purpose of the current study was to describe and report on the reliability and validity of the AKPS for use with high school female athletes participating in interscholastic athletics. The study was a secondary analysis of prospective epidemiologic data using established scale validation methods. The records of 414 female athletes 11.0 to 18.1 years of age (Mean 13.9 yrs, SD = 1.7 yrs) were used for analysis. Four different approaches to scoring and scale reduction of the AKPS were evaluated, including the original, ordinal 13-item form, a modified, ordinal 6-item form, a modified, dichotomous 13-item form, and a modified, dichotomous 6-item form. Three different types of reliability (internal consistency, equivalence across forms, standard error of measurement) and one type of validity (criterion-related) were estimated for the AKPS in the current sample. The four scoring formats of the AKPS scale were found to have high internal consistency (αcoef = 0.83 to 0.91), equivalence across the short and long forms (r = 0.98), acceptable standard errors of measurement (0.82 to 3.00), and moderate to high criterion related validity—as determined by physican’s diagnosis: 0.92 (13-item form), 0.90 (6-item form). The Kujala AKPS is a valid and reliable measure of anterior knee pain and appropriate for use as an epidemiologic screening tool with adolescent female athletes.

The differential relationships of acute phase reactants and pro-inflammatory cytokines with PTT suggest that in children with OSA, these mediators may have opposing actions to maintain cardiovascular homeostasis.