The high incidence of lung cancer among Chinese females, despite a low smoking prevalence, remains poorly explained. Cooking fume exposure during frying could be an important risk factor. We carried out a population-based case-control study in Hong Kong. Cases were Chinese female nonsmokers with newly diagnosed primary lung cancer. Controls were female nonsmokers randomly sampled from the community, frequency matched by age groups. Face-to-face interviews were conducted using a standardized questionnaire. The ''total cooking dish-years,'' categorized by increments of 50, was used as a surrogate of cooking fumes exposure. Multiple unconditional logistic regression was used to estimate the odds ratios (OR) for different levels of exposure after adjusting for various potential confounding factors. We interviewed 200 cases and 285 controls. The ORs of lung cancer across increasing levels of cooking dish-years were 1, 1.17, 1.92, 2.26, and 6.15. After adjusting for age and other potential confounding factors, the increasing trend of ORs with increasing exposure categories became clearer, being 1, 1.31, 4.12, 4.68, and 34. The OR of lung cancer was highest for deep-frying (2.56 per 10 dish-years) followed by that of frying (1.47), and stir-frying had the lowest OR (1.12) among the three methods. Cumulative exposure to cooking by means of any form of frying could increase the risk of lung cancer in Hong Kong nonsmoking women. Practical means to reduce exposures to cooking fumes should be given top priority in future research. (Cancer Res 2006; 66(9): 4961-7)

The epidemic of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) had a significant effect on global society in the early 2000s and the potential of its resurgence exists. Studies on the modes of transmission of SARS are limited though a number of outbreak studies have revealed the possible airborne route. To develop more specific and effective control strategies, we conducted a detailed mechanism-based investigation that explored the role of fomite transmission in the well-known Ward 8A outbreak. We considered three hypothetical transmission routes, i.e., the long-range airborne, fomite and combined routes, in 1,744 scenarios with combinations of some important parameters. A multi-agent model was used to predict the infection risk distributions of the three hypothetical routes. Model selection was carried out for different scenarios to compare the distributions of infection risk with that of the reported attack rates and select the hypotheses with the best fitness. Our results reveal that under the assumed conditions, the SARS coronavirus was most possible to have spread via the combined long-range airborne and fomite routes, and that the fomite route played a non-negligible role in the transmission.

Hyponatraemia is a common problem after thiazide therapy. Extra caution and close monitoring are warranted when prescribing thiazides for elderly patients with low body mass.

BackgroundPoverty is a major determinant of population health, but little is known about its role in modifying air pollution effects.ObjectivesWe set out to examine whether people residing in socially deprived communities are at higher mortality risk from ambient air pollution.MethodsThis study included 209 tertiary planning units (TPUs), the smallest units for town planning in the Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong, China. The socioeconomic status of each TPU was measured by a social deprivation index (SDI) derived from the proportions of the population with a) unemployment, b) monthly household income < US$250, c) no schooling at all, d) one-person household, e) never-married status, and f ) subtenancy, from the 2001 Population Census. TPUs were classified into three levels of SDI: low, middle, and high. We performed time-series analysis with Poisson regression to examine the association between changes in daily concentrations of ambient air pollution and daily number of deaths in each SDI group for the period from January 1996 to December 2002. We evaluated the differences in pollution effects between different SDI groups using a case-only approach with logistic regression.ResultsWe found significant associations of nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, particulate matter with aerodynamic diameter < 10 μm, and ozone with all nonaccidental and cardiovascular mortality in areas of middle or high SDI (p < 0.05). Health outcomes, measured as all nonaccidental, cardiovascular, and respiratory mortality, in people residing in high SDI areas were more strongly associated with SO2 and NO2 compared with those in middle or low SDI areas.ConclusionsNeighborhood socioeconomic deprivation increases mortality risks associated with air pollution.