Validation of Probabilistic Linkage to Match De-identified Ambulance Records to a State Trauma Registry

Objectives: To validate the accuracy of using probabilistic linkage for matching de‐identified ambulance records to a state trauma registry. Methods: This was a retrospective cohort analysis. Three thousand nine hundred nineteen true matches between ambulance and state trauma registry data from 1998 to 2003 were identified by deterministic matching on trauma identification number and verified by human review. Two thousand thirty‐eight ambulance records from trauma patients not meeting criteria for a true match, and an identical number of trauma registry records randomly selected from the one local county served by a different EMS provider, were included as nonmatches. There were 17 variables considered for linkage, which included the following: age, gender, race, county, hospital, date, rural setting, call and arrival times, mechanism, penetrating injury, vital signs, intubation, and intoxication. Probabilistic linkage was used to link the two data sets, using seven different combinations of common variables (maximum, 17; minimum, 4). The sensitivity and specificity of identifying true matches and nonmatches (95% confidence intervals [95% CI]) were calculated for each combination of variables. Results: Using all 17 available variables, 3,766 of 3,919 true matches were appropriately linked (sensitivity, 96.1%; 95% CI = 95.4% to 96.7%), with eight mismatches (specificity, 99.6%; 95% CI = 99.2% to 99.8%). Sensitivity fell below 95% with < 15 variables; however, sensitivity was very dependent on the inclusion of variables with high discriminatory power. Specificity remained >98% regardless of the number of variables included. Conclusions: Probabilistic linkage is a valid method for matching ambulance records to a trauma registry without the use of patient identifiers; however, the sensitivity of identifying true matches is critically dependent on the number and type of common variables included in the analysis.     

SPM5软件分析癫痫患者脑PET图像的应用研究

Objective To investigate the value of statistical parametric mapping 5 (SPM5) and its parameter settings in analysis of PET imaging for epilepsy patients. Methods Seventeen epilepsy patients and seventeen controls were scanned with PET. The datns were analyzed using PET and SPM5 with qualitative and semiquantitative analysis, statistical analysis of the percentage (numbers of agent distribution decreasing in focus to brain) for different parameters combinations, which were value adjustment to contral-p and voxels-k. Results There was decreasing of agent distribution at temporal lobe in epilepsy patients detecting with PET; the T/NT of focus to cerebellum was 1.07±0.24, the T/NT of normal tissue in opposite side to cerebellum was 1.27±0.18, there was a significant difference (t=1.87, P<0.05). Dealing with SPM5, there was more significant decreasing of agent in regions 19, 21, 39 of temporal lobe, regions 7, 19, 31, 40, 47 of parietal lobe and occipital lobe in epilepsy patients. With different value of k, the percentage was (27±22)%, (29±24)%, (32±23)%, (35±27)%, (39±31)%respectively, there was not significant difference (F=0.59, P>0.05) ; for different value of p, the percentage was (42±30) %, (29±25) %, (26±21) % respectively, with a significant difference (F=3.60, P<0.05); there was linear regression in value adjustment to contral-p and the percentage(b=-18.24, t=2.57, P<0.05). Conclusions Semiquantitative analysis by SPM5, the setting of value adjustment to contral-p would affect the results, the smaller of value adjustment to contral-p, the better of the result. SPM5 would be more objective and accurate to locate the focuses.     

中国人D13S301位点的微卫星多态及其应用价值

率先在国内应用ＰＣＲ技术扩增Ｗｉｌｓｏｎ病（ＷＤ）基因内部Ｄ１３Ｓ３０１位点的微卫星多态，通过变性聚丙烯酰胺凝胶电泳检测扩增产物，对８０名正常中国人进行了检测，结果具有１２种不同长度的等位片段，多态信息含量（ＰＩＣ值）为０．８８３，表明该位点在中国人群中具有长度多态性及较高的应用价值。应用该位点对１０个ＷＤ家系进行连锁分析，在２４名无症状个体中检出１２名基因携带者，７名正常纯合子及２名症状前患者，进一步证实该位点可用于ＷＤ的症状前诊断及杂合子筛选。     

Monoamine oxidases and alcoholism. II. Studies in alcoholic families

Thirty-five alcoholic families have been studied to investigate the relationship between DNA markers at the monoamine oxidase (MAO) loci and (1) platelet activity levels and (2) alcoholism. A quantitative linkage analysis failed to reveal any evidence that the variation in activity levels cosegregates with the DNA markers. A sib-pair analysis did not reveal a significant excess of MAO haplotype sharing among alcoholic sibs, although the deviation from random sharing was in the direction consistent with an X-linked component. A reanalysis of platelet MAO activity levels in a subset of these families revealed that the lower levels previously found in alcoholics is more likely due to the differences between males and females. Only among males and only when a “broad” definition of alcoholism is used (and MAO activity levels are transformed to normality) does it appear that alcoholics have depressed activities compared to nonalcoholics. Finally, when the confounding due to gender difference is removed, no differences between type I and type II alcoholics are found in these families. © 1995 Wiley-Liss, Inc.     

Obesity in youth and middle age and risk of colorectal cancer in men

To investigate an association between colon cancer and obesity during early adulthood—a potentially important period in the etiology of this disease—the authors assembled, by computer linkage, a population-based historical cohort of 52,539 men born between 1913 and 1927 residing in Hawaii (USA), for whom weight and height had been recorded in 1942–43 and 1972. Linkage of this cohort to the Hawaii Tumor Registry resulted in the identification of 737 incident cases of colorectal cancer for 1972–86. An average of 3.8 cancer-free controls were matched to each case on month and year of birth and ethnicity of the parents. A case-control analysis in each anatomic subsite of the large bowel revealed that both early and middle-age body mass increased the risk of sigmoid cancer in men in a dose-dependent fashion. The odds ratios (OR) for sigmoid cancer for the highest compared with the lowest tertiles of Quetelet index were: 2.1 (95 percent confidence interval [CI]=1.4–3.2) and 1.7 (CI=1.1–2.5), at ages 15–29 and in prediagnostic years, respectively. These associations were additive and idependent of socioeconomic status. Men who were above the median Quetelet index in 1942 and 1972 had an OR of 2.7 (CI=1.8–4.0), compared with those who were below the median in both periods. This study provides further evidence for an association of obesity with colon cancer in men and suggests that this association is limited to the sigmoid colon and may be related to both early and late events of colon carcinogenesis.The authors are with the Epidemiology Program, Cancer Research Center of Hawaii, University of Hawaii. Address correspondence to Dr Le Marchand, Epidemiology Program, Cancer Research Center of Hawaii, 1236 Lauhala Street, Suite 407, Honolulu, HI 96813, USA. This work was supported in part by Public Health Service grant 5-R29-CA44503 and contract NO1-CN-55424 from the National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services.     

Labman and Linkman: A data management system specifically designed for genome searches of complex diseases

Two programs have been developed to manage linkage analysis data. The first program, LABMAN, is a comprehensive laboratory data management system organizing pedigrees, blood DNA samples, DNA markers, Southern blot or polyacrylamide gels, autoradiographs, and marker-allele typings generated from these samples. Output includes mendelization checks for genetic incompatibilities in typings and formatted files ready for linkage analysis. LABMAN can also compress highly polymorphic allele systems into smaller allele systems facilitating analysis of large systems. The second program, LINKMAN, provides data management for lod score output from linkage analyses. It reads linkage analysis output files, calculates lod scores by family, associates lod scores with specific marker and family identifiers, and stores these data in a database where they can be combined with lod scores from previous analyses. LINKMAN easily incorporates any of a wide variety of genetic models. It produces formatted output of lod scores by user-specified criteria for reports or as ASCII files for input to other programs. If desired, tests of homogeneity of linkage across families can be run via the HOMOG program [Ott, 1991] and their output included in reports. The programs include features critical for conducting genome searches of complex diseases: They are easy-to-use, well-tested, and reliable. Data from multi-center investigations can be easily combined for analysis. Moreover, they include extensive error-checking capabilities, and they are specifically set up to protect blindness between laboratory workers and data analysts. LABMAN and LINKMAN are currently available free of charge under DOS. © 1994 Wiley-Liss, Inc.     

The weighted rank pairwise correlation statistic for linkage analysis: Simulation study and application to Alzheimer's disease

The weighted rank pairwise correlation (WRPC) statistic has been proposed as a robust test of genetic linkage, particularly adapted to the analysis of large and complex pedigrees and for age-dependent and heterogeneous diseases. In this paper a simulation study is presented. Validity and power of the WRPC test are studied and compared to the Haseman-Elston sibpair method for various types of problems. The power of the WRPC test is slightly lower than the Haseman-Elston method for analyzing a large number of small randomly chosen pedigrees. It is higher however in presence of genetic heterogeneity or for analyzing large individual pedigrees. Recently, evidence of linkage of Alzheimer's disease with a locus on chromosome 14, D14s43, has been obtained by the Lod-score method. We reanalyze these data using the WRPC test, essentially confirming the results of the Lod-score method. The WRPC test statistic is higher than the equivalent Lod-score statistic for the two pedigrees which show strong evidence of linkage with the two methods. The global WRPC test statistic is slightly lower than the Lod-score test statistic. The WRPC test, however, makes no hypothesis of a specific genetic transmission model and can be computed very quickly; in addition, an exact P-value can be computed by simulation for individual pedigrees. © 1994 Wiley-Liss, Inc.     

Ictal Single-Photon Emission Computed Tomography Imaging in Extra Temporal Lobe Epilepsy Using Statistical Parametric Mapping

PURPOSE: To examine the application of statistical parametric mapping (SPM) to analyze ictal single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) scans in surgical candidates with extratemporal lobe epilepsy. METHODS: The authors selected patients who underwent successful ictal SPECT acquisition in the process of surgical treatment of intractable partial epilepsy. Thirteen patients were identified who met inclusion criteria for confident seizure localization from either intracranial electroencephalogram recordings or epilepsy surgery outcome. In these cases, ictal scans were registered to an in-house-developed normal SPECT atlas composed of 14 spatially normalized brains of normal subjects. SPM96 was used to test on a voxel-by-voxel basis for statistically significant increases in blood flow associated with each patient's ictal scan. The results were then mapped back onto the patient's magnetic resonance image (MRI) for final interpretation. Statistical parametric mapping (SPM) analysis of ictal SPECT scans was compared to both conventional visual interpretation and the analysis of subtraction ictal SPECT co-registered to MRI (SISCOM). RESULTS: Ten of 13 patient scans showed localizing focal ictal increases in regional cerebral blood flow, all of which were concordant with ultimate epilepsy localization. Of the 3 cases not localized with SPM, 1 was localized by conventional visual interpretation and another, not localized by visual interpretation, was correctly localized with SISCOM. Two cases not localized by SISCOM were localized by both visual and SPM analysis. CONCLUSIONS: This work provides supportive evidence for proof of principle that SPM can be used to provide objective, accurate analysis of ictal SPECT scans in patients with extratemporal lobe epilepsy.     

术中皮质体感诱发电位与电刺激术定位脑功能区

目的探讨脑功能区手术中利用脑皮质体感诱发电位(SEP)及直接皮质电刺激定位脑功能区的方法及意义。方法对10例脑功能区病变病人在唤醒麻醉下进行手术，利用皮质SEP及皮质直接电刺激定位感觉区、运动区及语占区，住保护脑功能区的前提下，手术切除病变。结果7例病人利用SEP及皮质电刺激确定出运动感觉区，其中4例利用SEP位相倒置确定出中央沟，3例病变位于左侧额颞叶的病人通过皮质直接电刺激确定出语言区?术后功能均较术前明显好转。结论术中SEP及直接皮质电刺激可准确、实时确定脑功能区，最大程度地保护功能，切除病变。