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Objective: To evaluate the immunosuppressive effects of job stress in female nurses, an 8-month longitudinal study was conducted at a major university hospital. Methods: Four groups of ten subjects each were constructed to represent high versus low objective stress and high versus low subjective stress based on their responses to a job stress questionnaire and objective stress ratings of the hospital’s work units. Number of white blood cells (i.e., T cells, B cells, and natural killer cells), and lymphocytic proliferation to mitogens (concanavalin A, phytohemagglutinin, and pokeweed) and toxoid (tetanus) were measured by flow cytometry and radioimmunoassay. Serum levels of hydrocortisol, IL-1β, IFN-γ, and TNF-α, and salivary IgA were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. The data were analyzed by repeated measures analysis of variance controlling for age and smoking. Results: The level of white blood cells was lower among high objective stress group (median: 7,170/m; range: 5,386–10,057) compared with that among low objective stress group (8,063; 5,888–9,875) ( P = 0.03), however, no other cellular blood variables were found to be significant. In terms of humoral immuno-biomarkers, the level of TNF-α was moderately lower among high objective stress group (1.7 ng/ml; 0.3–2.7) compared with that among low objective stress group (2.2; 0.5–3.5) ( P = 0.07), whereas the level of total sIgA was significantly higher among higher objective stress group (72.9 end-point titer/mg/ml/min; 14.4–153.4) compared with that among low objective stress group (44.8; 9.9–123.8) ( P = 0.02). Conclusion: The results of the study suggest that psychological job stress affects the levels of some immunological biomarkers in female nurses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Objectives   This study was conducted to evaluate the potential role of CASP8 genetic polymorphisms in the etiology of breast cancer in a case–control study, Korea. Methods  Incident breast cancer cases confirmed histologically (n = 1,599) were recruited from two hospitals in Seoul during 2001–2005. Control subjects (n = 1,536) were selected from the Health Examinee Cohort from Seoul and Gyeonggi Province surrounding Seoul, Korea. Three SNPs (D302H D > H, 5′-UTR C > T, and K337K G > A) were genotyped by the primer extension assay. The CASP8 D302H, which was not polymorphic in 48 samples, was excluded in further genotyping. Odds ratios and 95% confidential intervals (95% CIs) were estimated by unconditional logistic regression model adjusted for age at enrollment, education, age at first full-term pregnancy, cigarette smoking, and family history of breast cancer. Results  The 5′-UTR T allele containing genotypes (CT/TT) were associated with an increased risk of breast cancer, compared with those with the CC genotype (OR = 1.13, 95% CI = 0.95–1.34; and OR = 1.48, 95% CI = 1.04–2.10, respectively; P-trend = 0.02). When stratified by the estrogen and progesterone receptor status, the association between the 5′-UTR T allele and breast cancer risk was prominent in ER(+) and PR(+) cases among pre-menopausal women (OR = 1.31, 95% CI = 1.00–1.72 and OR = 1.40, 95% CI = 1.06–1.85, respectively), whereas the association was found prominent in ER(−) or PR(−) cases (OR = 1.32, 95% CI = 0.93–1.87 and OR = 1.42, 95% CI = 1.04–1.94, respectively) among post-menopausal women. Conclusion  Our results thus suggest that the CASP8 5′-UTR C > T are associated with breast cancer risks and the effect may be modified by estrogen and progesterone receptor status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In most content-based image retrieval systems, the color information is extensively used for its simplicity and generality. Due to its compactness in characterizing the global information, a uniform quantization of colors, or a histogram, has been the most commonly used color descriptor. However, a cluster-based representation, or a signature, has been proven to bemore compact and theoretically sound than a histogram for increasing the discriminatory power and reducing the gap between human perception and computer-aided retrieval system. Despite of these advantages, only few papers have broached dissimilarity measure based on the cluster-based nonuniform quantization of colors. In this paper, we extract the perceptual representation of an original color image, a statistical signature by modifying general color signature, which consists of a set of points with statistical volume. Also we present a novel dissimilarity measure for a statistical signature called Perceptually Modified Hausdorff Distance (PMHD) that is based on the Hausdorff distance. In the result, the proposed retrieval system views an image as a statistical signature, and uses the PMHD as the metric between statistical signatures. The precision versus recall results show that the proposed dissimilarity measure generally outperforms all other dissimilarity measures on an unmodified commercial image database. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract  Endothelial nitric oxide synthase (NOS3) produces nitric oxide which is a mediator of cytotoxic effects potentially associated with breast cancer. We evaluated the role of genetic polymorphisms of NOS3 in breast cancer etiology, in a case–control study conducted in Korea. We recruited 1,385 eligible patients with histologicaly confirmed incident breast cancer cases and 968 hospital-based controls. Two potentially functional NOS3 polymorphisms in the promoter region (−786T > C) and exon 7 (894G > T, Glu298Asp) were genotyped and individual haplotypes were estimated. Odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidential intervals (95% CIs) were calculated by unconditional logistic regression, adjusting for age, body mass index, education, family history of breast cancer in first and second degree relatives, age at first full-term pregnancy and parity. There was no overall association between the −786T > C or 894G > T genotype and breast cancer risk. However, the −786C allele was marginally associated with decreased risk for invasive breast cancer with lymph node involvement (OR = 0.76, 95% CI = 0.56–1.04). And, compared to TG-TG carriers, all other haplotype pairs were significantly associated with invasive breast cancer with lymph node involvement (OR = 0.77, 95% CI = 0.59–0.99). Our results suggest that genetic polymorphisms in NOS3 modify individual susceptibility to invasive breast cancer with lymph node involvement in Korean women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dysregulation of the one-carbon metabolic pathway, which controls nucleotide synthesis and DNA methylation, may promote lymphomagenesis. We evaluated the association between polymorphisms in one-carbon metabolism genes and risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) in a population-based case-control study in Australia. Cases ( n = 561) and controls ( n = 506) were genotyped for 14 selected single-nucleotide polymorphisms in 10 genes ( CBS, FPGS, FTHFD, MTHFR, MTHFS, MTR, SHMT1, SLC19A1, TCN1, and TYMS). We also conducted a meta-analysis of all studies of Caucasian populations investigating the association between MTHFR Ex5+79C > T (a.k.a., 677C>T) and NHL risk. A global test of 13 genotypes was statistically significant for diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL; P = 0.008), but not for follicular lymphoma (FL; P = 0.27) or all NHL ( P = 0.17). The T allele at MTHFR Ex5+79 was marginally significantly associated with all NHL (OR = 1.25, 95% CI = 0.98–1.59) and DLBCL (1.36, 0.96–1.93). The T allele at TYMS Ex8+157 was associated with a reduced risk of FL (0.64, 0.46–0.91). An elevated risk of NHL was also observed among carriers of the G allele at FTHFD Ex21+31 (all NHL, 1.31, 1.02–1.69; DLBCL, 1.50, 1.05–2.14). A meta-analysis of 11 studies conducted in Caucasian populations of European origin (4,121 cases and 5,358 controls) supported an association between the MTHFR Ex5+79 T allele and increased NHL risk (additive model, P = 0.01). In conclusion, the results of this study suggest that genetic polymorphisms of one-carbon metabolism genes such as MTHFR and TYMS may influence susceptibility to NHL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To evaluate the relationship of genetic polymorphism in XRCC3 Thr241Met and the risk of breast cancer, a hospital-based case-control study was conducted in Korea. Histologically confirmed breast cancer cases ( n = 574) and controls ( n = 502) with no present or previous history of cancer were recruited from several teaching hospitals in Seoul during 1995–2001. Information on demographic characteristics and other information were collected by interviewed questionnaire. Genetic polymorphisms of XRCC3 Thr241Met (C > T) was determined by single base extention assay. The frequency of Thr/Thr, Thr/Met, and Met/Met genotype were 89.4, 10.4, 0.2% in cases and 92.3, 7.7, 0.0% in controls, respectively. Genotype distribution in controls fit well to the Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium ( P = 0.74). XRCC3 codon 241 Thr/Met or Met/Met genotype moderately increased the risk of breast cancer (OR = 1.4, 95% CI: 0.87–2.33), but not significant in this study. In the results of meta-analysis using twelve reports, however, Thr/Met or Met/Met genotype increased the risk of breast cancer (OR = 1.08, 95%CI: 1.00–1.17). In conclusion, although the genetic polymorphism of XRCC3 Thr241Met was unlikely to have a substantial overall association in Korean women, the meta-analysis of studies, including ours, provided that Thr/Met and Met/Met was weakly increased the risk of breast cancer compare to Thr/Thr genotype. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Objective. The proliferation of malignant breast epithelial cells is regulated by various stimuli including cytokines and growth factors, thus the variants of those genes may modify the breast cancer risk. To evaluate the potential influences of TGF-ß1 T29C and TNF-ß A252G gene polymorphisms on breast cancer risk, a case–control study was conducted in Korea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To estimate the prevalence and the related risk factors of low bone mineral density of the calcaneus and the distal radius, a community-based study was conducted in three rural areas of Korea. A total of 1420 women and 732 men aged 40 years and older participated in this study. Information on sociodemographic characteristics and the potential risk factors for osteoporosis were collected by an interviewer-administered standardized questionnaire. Bone mineral density (BMD) of the calcaneus and the distal radius were measured by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA). Three hundred and seventeen women and 183 men aged 20?29 years who participated in a regular health check-up were used as a reference population. Osteoporosis was defined using WHO criteria. Odds ratios of the risk factors of osteoporosis were calculated by the unconditional logistic regression model. The standardized prevalence of osteoporosis of the calcaneus was 8.4% for males and 27.3% for females using the Korean population of year 2000 as a standard population. The standardized prevalence of osteoporosis of the distal radius was 4.2% for males and 18.8% for females. Older age and lower body mass index (BMI) were related with low BMD in both the calcaneus and distal radius in males and females. The duration after menopause and the number of live births were an independent risk factor for osteoporosis of the calcaneus (OR=1.1, 95% CI=1.00?1.11; the duration after menopause; OR=2.0, 95% CI=1.20?3.35, the number of live birth) and a familial history of non-traumatic fractures or osteoporosis among the first-degree relatives was significantly related to a increased risk of osteoporosis of the distal radius in females (OR=2.9, 95% CI=1.36?6.31). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]