• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.11
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• pp.6971-6978
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• 2013

Background: Smoking among adolescents has been linked to a variety of adverse and long term health consequences. "Susceptibility to smoking" or the lack of cognitive commitment to abstain from smoking is an important predictor of adolescent smoking. In 2008, we conducted a study to determine the psycho-sociological factors associated with susceptibility to smoking among secondary school students in the district of Kota Tinggi, Johor. Materials and Methods: Two thousand seven hundred students were randomly selected by proportional stratified sampling. Analyses on 1,736 non-smoking students revealed that prevalence of adolescents susceptible to smoking was 16.3%. Results: Male gender (aOR=2.05, 95%CI= 1.23-3.39), poor academic achievement (aOR 1.60, 95%CI 1.05-2.44), ever-smoker (aOR 2.17, 95%CI 1.37-3.44) and having a smoking friend (aOR 1.76, 95%CI 1.10-2.83) were associated with susceptibility to smoking, while having the perception that smoking prohibition in school was strictly enforced (aOR 0.55, 95%CI 0.32-0.94), and had never seen friends smoking in a school compound (aOR 0.59, 95%CI 0.37-0.96) were considered protective factors Conclusions: These results indicate that follow-up programmes need to capitalise on the modifiable factors related to susceptibility to smoking by getting all stakeholders to be actively involved to stamp out smoking initiation among adolescents.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.17 no.9
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• pp.4415-4420
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• 2016

We aimed to investigate any association between hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) in the view of cytokines that control inflammation/angiogenesis and their correlation with certain CD markers. NHL patients with or without HCV infection were studied. CD5, CD30, CD3, CD20 and CD45 were immunohistochemically evaluated. Plasma levels of vascular endothelial and platelet derived growth factors (VEGF, and PDGF), tumor necrosis factor (TNF-${\alpha}$), transforming growth factor (TGF-${\beta}$), interleukin-6 (IL-6), IL-8, IL-4, IL-12 and interferon gamma (IFN-${\gamma}$) were detected by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). HCV+ve NHL patients showed a significant reduction in VEGF, PDGF, IFN-${\gamma}$, CD5 and CD45 and a significant increase in IL-12 and IL-8. In conclusion, there was a significant change in cytokine secretion and expression of CD markers in HCV+ve NHL patients. Based on our results, HCV infection in NHL patients requires more in-depth investigations to explore any role in lymphoma progression.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.17 no.9
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• pp.4341-4347
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• 2016

Background: Patient safety is one of the key components of nursing care for cancer cases. Valid and reliable context-based instruments are necessary for accurate evaluation of patient safety in oncology units. The aim of the present study was to develop and evaluate the psychometric properties of the Patient Safety Violation Scale in medical oncology units in Iran. Materials and Methods: In this methodological study, a pool of 58 items was generated through reviewing the existing literature. The validity of the 58-item scale was assessed through calculating impact score, content validity ratio, and content validity index for its items as well as conducting exploratory factor analysis. The reliability of the scale was evaluated by assessing its internal consistency and testretest stability. Study sample consisted of 300 oncology nurses who were recruited from thirteen teaching hospitals affiliated to Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. Results: Sixteen items were excluded from the scale due to having low impact scores, content validity ratios, or content validity indices. In exploratory factor analysis, the remaining 42 items were loaded on five factors including patient fall, verification of patientidentity, harm during care delivery, delay in care delivery, and medication errors. These five factors explained 62% of the total variance. The Cronbach's alpha of the scale and the test-retest interclass correlation coefficient were equal to 0.933 and 0.92, respectively. Conclusions: The 42-item Patient Safety Violation Scale is a simple and short scale which has acceptable validity and reliability. Consequently, it can be used for assessing patient safety in clinical settings such as medical oncology units and for research projects.

• Archives of Plastic Surgery
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• v.40 no.6
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• pp.687-696
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• 2013

Background Ischemic preconditioning has been shown to improve the outcomes of hypoxic tolerance of the heart, brain, lung, liver, jejunum, skin, and muscle tissues. However, to date, no report of ischemic preconditioning on vascularized bone grafts has been published. Methods Sixteen rabbits were divided into four groups with ischemic times of 2, 6, 14, and 18 hours. Half of the rabbits in each group underwent ischemic preconditioning. The osteomyocutaneous flaps consisted of the tibia bone, from which the overlying muscle and skin were raised. The technique of ischemic preconditioning involved applying a vascular clamp to the pedicle for 3 cycles of 10 minutes each. The rabbits then underwent serial plain radiography and computed tomography imaging on the first, second, fourth, and sixth postoperative weeks. Following this, all of the rabbits were sacrificed and histological examinations were performed. Results The results showed that for clinical analysis of the skin flaps and bone grafts, the preconditioned groups showed better survivability. In the plain radiographs, except for two non-preconditioned rabbits with intraoperative ischemic times of 6 hours, all began to show early callus formation at the fourth week. The computed tomography findings showed more callus formation in the preconditioned groups for all of the ischemic times except for the 18- hour group. The histological findings correlated with the radiological findings. There was no statistical significance in the difference between the two groups. Conclusions In conclusion, ischemic preconditioning improved the survivability of skin flaps and increased callus formation during the healing process of vascularized bone grafts.

• Food Science of Animal Resources
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• v.40 no.2
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• pp.155-171
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• 2020

Fermented products, including sausages, provide several health benefits, particularly when probiotics are used in the fermentation process. This study aimed to examine the cytotoxicity (against Caco-2 and MCF-7 cell lines), antihypertensive activity via angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibition, antioxidant capacity, antidiabetic activity via α-amylase and α-glucosidase inhibition, proteolysis rate, and oxidative degradation of fermented camel and beef sausages in vitro by the novel probiotic Lactococcus lactis KX881782 isolated from camel milk. Moreover, camel and beef sausages fermented with commercial starter culture alone were compared to those fermented with commercial starter culture combined with L. lactis. The degree of hydrolysis, antioxidant capacity, cytotoxicity against Caco-2 and MCF-7, α-amylase, α-glucosidase, and ACE inhibitory activities were higher (p<0.05) in fermented camel sausages than beef sausages. In contrast, the water and lipid peroxidation activity were lower (p<0.05) in camel sausages than beef sausages. L. lactis enhanced the health benefits of the fermented camel sausages. These results suggest that camel sausage fermented with the novel probiotic L. lactis KX881782 could be a promising functional food that relatively provides several health benefits to consumers compared with fermented beef sausage.

• Korean Journal of Ichthyology
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.231-240
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• 1998

The characteristics of cranium, vertebral column and fin supports of Acanthorhodeus gracilis were examined. The fish did not have a fontanell in cranium nor process of supraethmoid. It had double orbitosphenoids and a basioccipital process developed from anterior portion of basioccipital. It had a high and triangular dorsal process on supraoccipital. In the urohyal, hypohyal attachment was bifurcated and horizontal and vertical plate were in an elongated rhombus shape with posterior edge pointed. It had teeth of 1-rowed, 5/5 and 4 free teeth. The fish did not have a coracoid foramen on shoulder girdle. It does not have a uroneural on ural centrum. It had a long and slender posterior process of pelvic bone. It had a large and flat supraneural. The fish had 14 or 15 interneural spines, of which the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th had single basiosts and the rest had double basiosts. It had 11 or 12 interhemal spines, of which the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th had single basiosts and the rest had double basiosts.

• Korean Journal of Adult Nursing
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.418-430
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• 2000

Nurses in today's challenging health care settings need to be skilled critical thinkers and clinical experts. The nurse must be able to use a broad knowledge base to mobilize resources, coordinate actions and evaluate outcomes in complex new situations. So the national licensing examination for registered nurses is change to improve the quality of professional competency of nurses in Korea. Prior to this, learning objectives should be developed and improved periodically. The purpose of this study is to describe the nursing competency to provide base line data for developing learning objectives in adult health nursing. This study was conducted by means of a questionnaire which was developed by the researcher after reviewing the literature. The questionnaire was based on learning objectives which were developed by a nation-wide nursing faculty majoring in adult health nursing. The subjects were 45 nurses in a middle level hospital. The collected data were treated using SPSS Win 7.5 Statistical Package so as to obtain such descriptive statistics as mean score, frequency, and to test reliability test, nonpar-Friedman test. To summarize the major findings in this study, it showed the scope of nursing competency and can guide the direction of study and methodological criteria to develop learning objectives. Recommendations for further research are: firstly, it is necessary to state learning objectives with learners' behavioral terminology; secondly, to overcome locality in scope of this study, there is a need to analyze with nation-wide sampling by an in-depth statistical analysis; thirdly, because the subjects of this study are mostly three-year graduate nurses, there is a need to compare this study with other studies of different subjects.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.12
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• pp.4833-4837
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• 2015

Biomarkers for preclinical diagnosis of cancer are valuable tools for detection of malignant tumors at early stages in groups at risk and screening healthy people, as well as monitoring disease recurrence after treatment of cancer. However the complexity of the body's response to the pathological processes makes it virtually impossible to evaluate this response to the development of the disease using a single biomarker that is present in the serum at low concentrations. An alternative approach to standard biomarker analysis is called immunosignature. Instead of going after biomarkers themselves this approach rely on the analysis of the humoral immune response to molecular changes associated with the development of pathological processes. It is known that antibodies are produced in response to proteins expressed during cancer development. Accordingly, the changes in antibody repertoire associated with tumor growth can serve as biomarkers of cancer. Immunosignature is a highly sensitive method for antibody repertoire analysis utilizing high density peptide microarrays. In the present review we discuss modern methods for antibody detection, as well as describe the principles and applications of immunosignature in research and clinical practice.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.12
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• pp.4921-4926
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• 2015

Background: Breast cancer is the most common cancer type among women with increasing incidence rates, improved prognosis and survival. According to the localization of the tumor, breast cancer is designated as unilateral (UBC) or bilateral (BBC). BBC can be classified as synchronous (SBBC) or metachronous (MBBC) based on the time interval between the diagnosis of the first and the secondary tumors. According to the guideline of WHO 2012, BBC is generally defined as SBBC when contralateral breast carcinoma is diagnosed within 3 months. The aim of this study was to compare the characteristics and patterns of metastasis of BBC patients with UBC. Materials and Methods: A cohort of 768 patients with breast cancer treated at the Turkish Ministry of Health-Izmir Bozyaka Research and Training Hospital between 1976 and 2012 were studied. Survival analysis was performed comparing UBC and BBC patients. In addition, evaluations were performed in patients with SBBC and MBBC sub-groups. We used a 3-months interval to distinguish metachronous from synchronous. Results: When clinical and histopathological parameters were statistically evaluated, ER status, event-free and overall survival were found to be significant between UBC and BBC patients. In comparison of SBBC and MBBC patients, age, histological type of tumor, event-free and overall survival were found to be significant. Conclusions: BBC cases were found to show worse prognosis than UBC cases. Among BBC, SBBC had the worst prognosis based on overall survival rates.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.15
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• pp.6029-6033
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• 2014

The burden and severity of a cancer can be reflected by patterns of survival. Breast cancer prognosis between two countries with a different socioeconomic status and cultural beliefs may exhibit wide variation. This study aimed to describe survival in patients with breast cancer in China and Thailand in relation to demographic and clinical prognostic information. Materials and Methods: We compared the survival of 1,504 Chinese women in Yunnan province and 929 Thai women in Songkhla with breast cancer from 2006 to 2010. Descriptive prognostic comparisons between the Chinese and Thai women were performed by relative survival analysis. A Cox regression model was used to calculate the hazard ratios of death, taking into account the age, disease stage, period of diagnosis and country. Results: The overall 5-year survival proportion for patients diagnosed with breast cancer for Yunnan province (0.72) appeared slightly better than Songkhla (0.70) without statistical significance. Thai women diagnosed with distant and regional breast cancer had poorer survival than Chinese women. Disease stage was the most important determinant of survival from the results of Cox regression model. Conclusions: Breast cancer patients in Kunming had slightly greater five-year survival rate than patients in Songkhla. Both Chinese and Thai women need improvement in prognosis, which could conceivably be attained through increased public education and awareness regarding early detection and compliance to treatment protocols.