Isolated reports of brucellosis among family members have been documented. The aim of this study is to determine if active serological screening of the households' members of acute brucellosis cases will detect additional unrecognized cases. From May 2000 to October 2001, patients with acute brucellosis were enrolled and their household members were serologically screened for brucellosis using the Standard Agglutination Test (SAT). Fifty-five index cases with acute brucellosis and 404 household members were enrolled. The majority of index cases (48%) were young adults, and 79% were illiterate. Ownership of animals and ingestion of unpasteurized raw milk were reported by 45 and 75% of the index cases respectively. Of the 55 families screened, 23 (42%) had two family members or more with serological evidence of brucellosis and 32 (58%) had only the index case. Households of > or = 5 members and a history of raw-milk ingestion by family members were risk factors associated with the seropositives (P < 0.05). Of the 404 household members screened, 53 (13%) were seropositive; of these 39 (74%) were symptomatic, and 9 (35%) had brucella bacteraemia. Symptomatic seropositives tended to have bacteraemia and higher brucella antibody titres compared to asymptomatic seropositives (P < or = 0.05). Screening family members of an index case of acute brucellosis will detect additional cases.

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The study objective was to identify personal and work-related risk factors associated with carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) in electronics assembly, operators relative to clerical workers in the same factory. Of 422 workers in a television assembly factory located in Ismailia, Suez Canal Area, Egypt, 198 (46.9%) participated. The electronics assembly workers were more likely to report CTS (odds ratio = 11.41, 95% CI = 3.6 -40.26) than were the clerical workers. The significant risk factors were longer work years (odds ratio = 1.11, 95% CI = 1.03-1.20) and precision-type hand grip (odds ratio = 6.5, 95% CI = 1.08-39.23). The results suggest an association between electronics assembly and CTS. Work years and precision grip are possible risk factors for CTS and should be studied more thoroughly. Tools to reduce the need for precision grip may help reduce CTS.

Proliferative activity has been proven to be of prognostic significance in breast carcinoma. This study was performed to compare the different proliferative fractions in the Egyptian population and to define the most suitable one for daily routine use in our surgical pathology laboratories. The proliferative activity of 63 invasive ductal carcinomas was evaluated by immunohistochemical staining of paraffin-embedded tissue sections with MIB-1 rabbit polyclonal antibody and the heat-induced epitope retrieval method, flow cytometric determination of the S-phase fraction (SPF) on frozen tissues, and estimation of the Scarff-Bloom-Richardson (SBR) grading and mitotic figure count (MFC) on hematoxylin and eosin-stained tissue sections. Fifty-two percent of invasive ductal carcinoma were aneuploid. The mean values of MIB-1 index, SPF, and MFC were 17.7 +/- 12.3, 4.9 +/- 3.8, and 5.2 +/- 4.5, respectively, for diploid tumors; while for aneuploid tumors, they were 58.6 +/- 31.9, 19.9 +/- 12.2, and 23.1 +/- 16.9, respectively. These values were significantly higher in aneuploid versus diploid tumors (p < 0.0001). A close correlation was found between MIB-1 index, SPF, MFC, and SBR grading (p < 0.0001). In conclusion, in surgical pathology laboratories that cannot afford the costs of flow cytometry and/or immunostaining, proper SBR grading and MFC can provide an estimation of the proliferation fraction similar to the flow cytometric SPF and MIB-1 immunostaining.