Category: Statistics

Indian J Ophthalmol. 2023 Dec 26. doi: 10.4103/IJO.IJO_2182_22. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: We aim to report the natural course of non-center involving diabetic macular edema (NCIDME) progression to center involving diabetic macular edema (CIDME) and associated risk factors.

METHODS: This is a multicenter retrospective comparative study. Data was collected from electronic medical records from 8 centers in India covering. We included patients with type 2 diabetes above 18 years of age with treatment-naïve NCIDME on OCT and best-corrected visual acuity at baseline of 6/12 or better who were under observation for NCIDME and had 2 years follow-up data.

RESULTS: Out of 72 patients with NCIDME, 26.38% patients progressed to CI DME by 2 years, and the visit wise proportion was 11.11% at 6 months, 7% at 1st year and 8.3% at 2 years. The change in CST was statistically significant at 2 years in patients who developed CIDME, the mean difference was 137.73 ± 48.56 microns p = 0.045. Duration of diabetes mellitus > 10 years was the only risk factor for conversion to CIDME.

CONCLUSION: A quarter of eyes with NCIDME developed CIDME and 15% progressed from NPDR to PDR by 2 years, highlighting the disease burden in these patients with NCIDME.

PMID:38153973 | DOI:10.4103/IJO.IJO_2182_22

PLoS One. 2023 Dec 28;18(12):e0293981. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0293981. eCollection 2023.

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: Chronic Respiratory Disease Questionnaire Self-Administered Standardized (CRQ-SAS) is a valid and reliable tool that evaluates the health-related quality of life among the adult population affected with chronic respiratory disorders (CRDs) and has been translated into many languages as per need. The main objective of this study was to translate the CRQ-SAS into the Urdu language and evaluate its psychometric properties.

METHODOLOGY: It was a two-staged study that consisted of translating the original version into Urdu language and then psychometric testing of the translated version. The reliability of the translated questionnaire was assessed by measuring its internal consistency, test-retest reliability, standard error of mean (SEM) & minimal detectable change (MDC). Validity was determined by evaluating its content for content validity, construct (convergent and discriminative) validity, and exploratory factor analysis. Data was analyzed using SPSS v 28 with an alpha level < 0.05 considered to be significant.

RESULTS: CRQ-SAS U had an excellent internal consistency (Cronbach’s Alpha α = 0.89), test-retest reliability (ICC2,1) = 0.91 of all items, and low SEM = 0.11 and MDC = 0.65. S-CVI was 0.9, with statistically significant difference across the response of COPD patients and healthy subjects, and a high degree of correlation with St Georges Respiratory Questionnaire (r = 0.7-0.9) proving CRQ-SAS U content, discriminant and convergent valid respectively. Exploratory factor analysis identified two factors responsible for 80% of the variance.

CONCLUSION: CRQ-SAS U demonstrated optimal psychometric properties which renders it to be used in Urdu speaking populations with COPD.

PMID:38153959 | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0293981

PLoS One. 2023 Dec 28;18(12):e0283175. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0283175. eCollection 2023.

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: The study aimed to examine the effect of witnessing inter-parental violence and experiencing childhood abuse on victimization of intimate partner violence (IPV) after marriage among adolescent and young girls.

METHOD: Data were drawn from the second wave of the Understanding the lives of adolescents and young adults (UDAYA) survey (2018-2019). The sample size was 5480 married adolescent and young girls aged 13-23 years. The outcome variable of the study was the victimization of IPV. Descriptive statistics, bivariate analysis and structural equation modelling (SEM) were performed.

RESULT: A total of 39% of married adolescent and young girls experienced physical violence, followed by sexual violence (35%) and emotional violence (28%) by their partner. Around 30% of respondents witnessed inter-parental violence, and 32% of the participants were beaten by their parents during childhood. Participants who had witnessed inter-parental violence were significantly correlated with experiencing childhood abuse, and this association was positively correlated with exposure to IPV in adolescence and young adulthood. Further, the parameter estimates of the indicators of IPV were highest for emotional violence (1.10) followed by physical violence (1.00) and sexual violence (0.62). Witnessing inter-parental violence significantly increases parents’ physical violence to adolescents and young adult girls (β = 0.49, P<0.001, CI: 0.47-0.51). No tie between witnessing inter-parental violence and childhood abuse mediates their effect on later victimization of IPV.

CONCLUSION: The findings indicate that witnessing inter-parental violence is a strong risk factor for IPV victimization among adolescent and young adult girls. Our findings advocate prerequisite collaborative effort with multiple service providers for greater empowerment at national, state, community, and family levels to achieve SDG goals pertaining to eliminating violence against women.

PMID:38153957 | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0283175

PLoS One. 2023 Dec 28;18(12):e0296054. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0296054. eCollection 2023.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: The evidence for an increased incidence of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) among patients utilizing HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) has been inconsistent. We assessed the risk of incident STI while on PrEP compared to periods off PrEP among military service members starting PrEP.

METHODS: Incidence rates of chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis, hepatitis C virus, and HIV were determined among military service members without HIV prescribed daily oral tenofovir disoproxil fumarate and emtricitabine for HIV PrEP from February 1, 2014 through June 10, 2016. Hazard ratios for incident STIs were calculated using an Anderson-Gill recurrent event proportional hazard regression model.

RESULTS: Among 755 male service members, 477 (63%) were diagnosed with incident STIs (overall incidence 21.4 per 100 person-years). Male service members had a significantly lower risk of any STIs (adjusted hazard ratio (aHR) 0.21, 95% CI 0.11-0.40) while using PrEP compared to periods off PrEP after adjustment for socio-demographic characteristics, reasons for initiating PrEP, surveillance period prior to PrEP initiation, and the effect of PrEP on site and type of infection in multivariate analysis. However, when stratifying for anatomical site and type of infection, the risk of extragenital gonorrhea infection (pharyngeal NG: aHR 1.84, 95% CI 0.82-4.13, p = 0.30; rectal NG: aHR 1.23, 95% CI 0.60-2.51, p = 1.00) and extragenital CT infection (pharyngeal CT: aHR 2.30, 95% CI 0.46-11.46, p = 0.81; rectal CT: aHR 1.36, 95% CI 0.81-2.31, p = 0.66) was greater on PrEP compared to off PrEP although these values did not reach statistical significance.

CONCLUSIONS: The data suggest entry into PrEP care reduced the overall risk of STIs following adjustment for anatomical site of STI and treatment. Service members engaged in PrEP services also receive more STI prevention counseling, which might contribute to decreases in STI risk while on PrEP.

PMID:38153953 | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0296054

PLoS Genet. 2023 Dec 28;19(12):e1011104. doi: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1011104. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

Identifying causal variants from genome-wide association studies (GWAS) is challenging due to widespread linkage disequilibrium (LD) and the possible existence of multiple causal variants in the same genomic locus. Functional annotations of the genome may help to prioritize variants that are biologically relevant and thus improve fine-mapping of GWAS results. Classical fine-mapping methods conducting an exhaustive search of variant-level causal configurations have a high computational cost, especially when the underlying genetic architecture and LD patterns are complex. SuSiE provided an iterative Bayesian stepwise selection algorithm for efficient fine-mapping. In this work, we build connections between SuSiE and a paired mean field variational inference algorithm through the implementation of a sparse projection, and propose effective strategies for estimating hyperparameters and summarizing posterior probabilities. Moreover, we incorporate functional annotations into fine-mapping by jointly estimating enrichment weights to derive functionally-informed priors. We evaluate the performance of SparsePro through extensive simulations using resources from the UK Biobank. Compared to state-of-the-art methods, SparsePro achieved improved power for fine-mapping with reduced computation time. We demonstrate the utility of SparsePro through fine-mapping of five functional biomarkers of clinically relevant phenotypes. In summary, we have developed an efficient fine-mapping method for integrating summary statistics and functional annotations. Our method can have wide utility in understanding the genetics of complex traits and increasing the yield of functional follow-up studies of GWAS. SparsePro software is available on GitHub at https://github.com/zhwm/SparsePro.

PMID:38153934 | DOI:10.1371/journal.pgen.1011104

Syst Biol. 2023 Dec 28:syad075. doi: 10.1093/sysbio/syad075. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

Birth-death models are stochastic processes describing speciation and extinction through time and across taxa, and are widely used in biology for inference of evolutionary timescales. Previous research has highlighted how the expected trees under the constant-rate birth-death (crBD) model tend to differ from empirical trees, for example with respect to the amount of phylogenetic imbalance. However, our understanding of how trees differ between the crBD model and the signal in empirical data remains incomplete. In this Point of View, we aim to expose the degree to which the crBD model differs from empirically inferred phylogenies and test the limits of the model in practice. Using a wide range of topology indices to compare crBD expectations against a comprehensive dataset of 1189 empirically estimated trees, we confirm that crBD model trees frequently differ topologically compared with empirical trees. To place this in the context of standard practice in the field, we conducted a meta-analysis for a subset of the empirical studies. When comparing studies that used Bayesian methods and crBD priors with those that used other non-crBD priors and non-Bayesian methods (i.e., maximum likelihood methods), we do not find any significant differences in tree topology inferences. To scrutinize this finding for the case of highly imbalanced trees, we selected the 100 trees with the greatest imbalance from our dataset, simulated sequence data for these tree topologies under various evolutionary rates, and re-inferred the trees under maximum likelihood and using the crBD model in a Bayesian setting. We find that when the substitution rate is low, the crBD prior results in overly balanced trees, but the tendency is negligible when substitution rates are sufficiently high. Overall, our findings demonstrate the general robustness of crBD priors across a broad range of phylogenetic inference scenarios, but also highlights that empirically observed phylogenetic imbalance is highly improbable under the crBD model, leading to systematic bias in data sets with limited information content.

PMID:38153910 | DOI:10.1093/sysbio/syad075

PLOS Glob Public Health. 2023 Dec 28;3(12):e0001984. doi: 10.1371/journal.pgph.0001984. eCollection 2023.

ABSTRACT

Early childhood adversity increases risk for negative lifelong impacts on health and wellbeing. Identifying the risk factors and the associated biological adaptations early in life is critical to develop scalable early screening tools and interventions. Currently, there are limited, reliable early childhood adversity measures that can be deployed prospectively, at scale, to assess risk in pediatric settings. The goal of this two-site longitudinal study was to determine if the gold standard measure of oxidative stress, F2-Isoprostanes, is potentially a reliable measure of a physiological response to adversity of the infant and mother. The study evaluated the independent relationships between F2-Isoprostanes, perinatal adversity and infant neurocognitive development. The study included mother-infant dyads born >36 weeks’ gestation. Maternal demographic information and mental health assessments were utilized to generate a perinatal cumulative risk score. Infants’ development was assessed at 6 and 12 months and both mothers and infants were assayed for F2-isoprostane levels in blood and urine, respectively. Statistical analysis revealed that cumulative risk scores correlated with higher maternal (p = 0.01) and infant (p = 0.05) F2-isoprostane levels at 6 months. Infant F2-isoprostane measures at 2 months were negatively associated with Mullen Scales of Early Learning Composite scores at 12 months (p = 0.04). Lastly, higher cumulative risk scores predicted higher average maternal F2-isoprostane levels across the 1-year study time period (p = 0.04). The relationship between perinatal cumulative risk scores and higher maternal and infant F2-isoprostanes at 6 months may reflect an oxidative stress status that informs a sensitive period in which a biomarker can be utilized prospectively to reveal the physiological impact of early adversity.

PMID:38153909 | DOI:10.1371/journal.pgph.0001984

ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2023 Dec 28. doi: 10.1021/acsami.3c14246. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

Opioids are considered to be a global threat, and we are facing the worst opioid crisis of the decade. Synthetic opioids like fentanyl are highly potent and deadly toward human body, and hence its detection is an inevitable requirement globally. Naloxone is known for its antagonist property toward fentanyl, and we performed computational simulations to find their interactions and use this principle to build the first of a kind impedimetric sensor device, transduced by 3D-ZIF-8 with in situ encapsulated naloxone-gold nanoparticles. The probe is synthesized using a unique encapsulation strategy, thoroughly characterized by various physicochemical and microscopic tools. The sensor is highly selective toward fentanyl and can detect fentanyl up to 100 ppm in a synthetic sample. A prototype device is also built based on the synthetic calibration and applied to the spiked urine sample, and the performance is evaluated using statistical and machine learning tools.

PMID:38153905 | DOI:10.1021/acsami.3c14246

Vestn Otorinolaringol. 2023;88(6):42-47. doi: 10.17116/otorino20238806142.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: The study of the population and subpopulation content of lymphocytes and immunoglobulins and their associations in IgE-mediated CRS relative to other CRS and the control group.

MATERIAL AND METHODS: 23 patients with IgE-mediated chronic rhinusinusitis and 67 patients with normal IgE blood levels were examined. For analysis, flow cytometry (Cytomics FC500, Beckman Coulter, USA), using monoclonal antibodies CD3⁺, CD4⁺, CD8⁺, CD16⁺, CD19⁺ and enzyme immunoassay (Thermo Scientific Multiskan FC, Thermo Fisher Scientific, USA), using IgA, IgM, IgE and IgG in serum, statistical processing was performed using Statistica 7.0.

RESULTS: In patients with CRS and IgE-mediated CRS, hyperactivation was revealed in both T- and B-cell immunity, manifested by an increase in the level of T-lymphocytes, NK-lymphocytes and B-lymphocytes. More pronounced disorders in the immune status are detected in patients with IgE – mediated CRS, there is a more pronounced activation of the T-cell immune link due to an increase in T-helper cells, T-killer/suppressor cells, an imbalance in their number is accompanied by a decrease in their ratio in the immunoregulatory index. Activation of the immune system in patients with CRS is also associated with an increase in the content of mature B-lymphocytes (CD19⁺), while only in patients with IgE-mediated CRS, hypergammaglobulinemia of classes A and M was detected.

CONCLUSION: Changes in the immune status indicate a violation of immune regulation, confirmed by the revealed correlations between the subpopulations of lymphocytes and immunoglobulins that implement the immune response in this condition. The greatest number of violations in the regulation is associated with mature T-lymphocytes in both CRS and IgE-mediated CRS, while only IgA fully retains its function.

PMID:38153892 | DOI:10.17116/otorino20238806142

Vestn Otorinolaringol. 2023;88(6):30-37. doi: 10.17116/otorino20238806130.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the features of voice disorders associated with novel coronavirus infection and to develop the clinical algorithm for diagnostic and treatment these patients.

MATERIAL AND METHODS: A prospective observational study was conducted in patients with dysphonia after COVID-19 (n=60). All patients underwent a comprehensive voice assessment before and after the proposed treatment. The follow-up period was 1 month.

RESULTS: Functional dysphonia or aphonia with a stable (refractory) or recurrent course was diagnosed in 58 (97%) patients. A tendency to an increase in the value of the latent period of the P300 and MMN in patients with voice disorder was revealed. There was a significant decrease in supraglottic constriction and glottal insufficiency before and after the treatment. The mean VHI-10 decreased from 25.4 before treatment to 15.3 after treatment. The DSI which is based on the set of voice measurements, statistically significant improved from -5.2 to 2.6 in patients as a result of treatment. The average value of MFI-20 improved from 65.4 (8.7) at the beginning of the study to 20.3 (5.3) after treatment.

CONCLUSION: In patients with dysphonia or aphonia associated with COVID-19 are indicated a refractory type of dysphonia. This was indicated by the study of AEPs of the brain. The clinical algorithm for treatment and diagnostic patients with voice disorders after COVID-19 has been developed. The treatment of this group of patients should be adjunct by the drug therapy, kinesiotaping method and psychotherapy.

PMID:38153890 | DOI:10.17116/otorino20238806130