Inconsistencies Between Actual and Estimated Blood Alcohol Concentrations in a Field Study of College Students: Do Students Really Know How Much They Drink?

BACKGROUND: Alcohol use by college students is commonly measured through the use of surveys. The validity of such data hinge on the assumption that students are aware of how much alcohol they actually consume. Recent studies call this assumption into question. Students tend to overestimate the appropriate sizes of standard drinks, suggesting that they might underestimate how much alcohol they consume. If this is true, then students' actual blood alcohol concentrations (BACs) should be higher than BACs estimated based on self-report data. The present study examined this issue METHODS: Breathalyzer readings and self-reported drinking data were collected from 152 college students during the fall of 2004. Estimated BACs were calculated by means of a standard formula, and the relation between actual and estimated BACs was examined. Factors contributing to discrepancies between the two values were identified RESULTS: Estimated BAC levels were significantly higher, not lower, than breath BAC measures. The accuracy of estimated BACs decreased as the number of drinks and amount of time spent drinking increased. Being male and drinking only beer predicted greater accuracy of estimated BACs CONCLUSIONS: Although laboratory data suggest that students underestimate how much they drink, the hypothesis was not supported by data collected in the field. It appears that students might actually overestimate rather than underestimate their levels of consumption when surveyed in the midst of a night of drinking. The findings corroborate observations made by other researchers and suggest that the findings of laboratory studies on college drinking do not necessarily extend to real-world settings.     

Noninvasive assessment of coronary vasodilation using magnetic resonance angiography

OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study was to investigate the use of coronary magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) for assessing human epicardial coronary artery vasodilation. BACKGROUND: Coronary vasodilation plays a vital role in the human coronary circulation. Previous studies of epicardial coronary vasodilation have used invasive coronary angiography. Coronary MRA may provide an alternative noninvasive method to directly assess changes in coronary size. METHODS: Thirty-two subjects were studied: 12 patients (age 55 +/- 18 years) and 20 healthy subjects (age 34 +/- 4 years). High-resolution multi-slice spiral coronary MRA (in-plane resolution of 0.52 to 0.75 mm) was performed before and after sublingual nitroglycerin (NTG). Quantitative analysis of coronary vasodilation was performed on cross-sectional images of the right coronary artery (RCA). A time-course analysis of coronary vasodilation was performed in a subset of eight subjects for 30 min after NTG. Signal-to-noise ratio was also measured on the in-plane RCA images. RESULTS: Coronary MRA demonstrated a 23% increase in cross-sectional area after NTG (16.9 +/- 7.8 mm2 to 20.8 +/- 8.9 mm2, p <0.0001), with significant vasodilation between 3 and 15 min after NTG on time-course analysis. The MRA measurements had low interobserver variability (< or =5%) and good correlation with X-ray angiography (r=0.98). The magnitude of vasodilation correlated with baseline cross-sectional area (r=0.52, p=0.03) and age (r=0.40, p=0.019). Post-NTG images also demonstrated a 31% improvement in coronary signal-to-noise ratio (p = 0.002). CONCLUSIONS: Nitroglycerin-enhanced coronary MRA can noninvasively measure coronary artery vasodilation and is a promising noninvasive technique to study coronary vasomotor function.     

RNAi-Mediated β-Catenin Inhibition Promotes T Cell Infiltration and Antitumor Activity in Combination with Immune Checkpoint Blockade

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Investigating the relationship between HIV testing and risk behaviour in Britain: National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles 2000

OBJECTIVES: To estimate the prevalence of, and identify factors associated with, HIV testing in Britain. DESIGN: A large, stratified probability sample survey of sexual attitudes and lifestyles. METHODS: A total of 12,110 16-44 year olds completed a computer-assisted face-to-face interview and self-interview. Self-reports of HIV testing, i.e. the timing, reasons for and location of testing, were included. RESULTS: A total of 32.4% of men and 31.7% of women reported ever having had an HIV test, the majority of whom were tested through blood donation. When screening for blood donation and pregnancy were excluded, 9.0% of men and 4.6% of women had had a voluntary confidential HIV test (VCT) in the past 5 years. However, one third of injecting drug users and men who have sex with men had a VCT in the past 5 years. VCT in the past 5 years was significantly associated with age, residence, ethnicity, self-perceived HIV risk, reporting greater numbers of sexual partners, new sexual partners from abroad, previous sexually transmitted infection diagnosis, and injecting non-prescribed drugs for men and women, and same-sex partners (men only). Whereas sexually transmitted disease clinics were important sites for VCT, general practice accounted for almost a quarter of VCT. CONCLUSION: HIV testing is relatively common in Britain; however, it remains largely associated with population-based blood donation and antenatal screening programmes. In contrast, VCT remains highly associated with high-risk (sexual or drug-injecting) behaviours or population sub-groups at high risk. Strategies to reduce undiagnosed prevalent HIV infection will require further normalization and wider uptake of HIV testing.     

Incidence and prognosis of c-KIT and FLT3 mutations in core binding factor (CBF) acute myeloid leukaemias

DNA from 110 adult de novo acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) patients exhibiting either inv(16) (n = 63) or t(8;21) (n = 47) was screened for mutations in the c-KIT (exon 8 and Asp816) and FLT3 (ITD and Asp835) genes. c-KIT exon 8 mutations were found in 15/63 (23.8%) inv(16) patients and 1/47 (2.1%) t(8;21) patients. c-KIT Asp816 mutations were present in 5/63 (7.9%) inv(16) AML and 5/47 (10.6%) t(8;21) AML. FLT3 mutations were identified in five patients (7.9%) with inv(16) and three patients (5.6%) with t(8;21) AML. All mutations were mutually exclusive; 40% of inv(16) AML patients possessed either a c-KIT or FLT3 mutation. c-KIT exon 8 mutations were shown to be a significant factor adversely affecting relapse rate.     

Ringversuch zum Nachweis genomischer Veränderungen bei Non-Hodgkin-Lymphomen mittels In-situ-Hybridisierung

Background

The detection of characteristic genomic aberrations by fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) has a high diagnostic impact on lymphomas according to the World Health Organization (WHO). To investigate the reproducibility of non-isotopic ISH results a multicenter trial was carried out involving eight institutes for hematopathology.

Material and methods

Analyses were performed on two diffuse large B-cell lymphomas (DLBCL) without known aberrations, on one follicular lymphoma with a IGH/BCL2 translocation and BCL6 split and on two B-cell lymphomas intermediate between DLBCL and Burkitt’s lymphoma with c-MYC and BCL2 rearrangements, one with an additional BCL6 split. Break-apart probes for BCL6 and c-MYC, as well as fusion probes for the c-MYC/IGH and the IGH/BCL2 translocations were used.

Results

All aberrations were correctly detected by all centres and no false positive or false negative results were obtained. The numbers of positive cells varied from 25% to 94%. Pearson’s correlation coefficient between the centres was always >?0.8.

Conclusions

The ISH analysis of recurrent genomic aberrations in formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tissue is a highly reproducible technique which yields substantial additive help for lymphoma diagnostics.     

Twenty-year trends in the prevalence of Down syndrome and other trisomies in Europe: impact of maternal age and prenatal screening

This study examines trends and geographical differences in total and live birth prevalence of trisomies 21, 18 and 13 with regard to increasing maternal age and prenatal diagnosis in Europe. Twenty-one population-based EUROCAT registries covering 6.1 million births between 1990 and 2009 participated. Trisomy cases included live births, fetal deaths from 20 weeks gestational age and terminations of pregnancy for fetal anomaly. We present correction to 20 weeks gestational age (ie, correcting early terminations for the probability of fetal survival to 20 weeks) to allow for artefactual screening-related differences in total prevalence. Poisson regression was used. The proportion of births in the population to mothers aged 35+ years in the participating registries increased from 13% in 1990 to 19% in 2009. Total prevalence per 10 000 births was 22.0 (95% CI 21.7–22.4) for trisomy 21, 5.0 (95% CI 4.8–5.1) for trisomy 18 and 2.0 (95% CI 1.9–2.2) for trisomy 13; live birth prevalence was 11.2 (95% CI 10.9–11.5) for trisomy 21, 1.04 (95% CI 0.96–1.12) for trisomy 18 and 0.48 (95% CI 0.43–0.54) for trisomy 13. There was an increase in total and total corrected prevalence of all three trisomies over time, mainly explained by increasing maternal age. Live birth prevalence remained stable over time. For trisomy 21, there was a three-fold variation in live birth prevalence between countries. The rise in maternal age has led to an increase in the number of trisomy-affected pregnancies in Europe. Live birth prevalence has remained stable overall. Differences in prenatal screening and termination between countries lead to wide variation in live birth prevalence.