z Evidence summary Clinicians have been concerned about x-ray exposure during pregnancy since the 1950s. Much of this concern was based on the Oxford Survey of Childhood Leukemia, as well as other early casecontrol studies. These studies reported an approximate 40% increase in the risk of childhood leukemia among offspring of women who received diagnostic x-rays in pregnancy. However, by modern...

Dengue fever (DF) is globally emerging mosquito born viral disease. Pakistan is at high risk of dengue fever due to unavailability of vaccine, crowded cities, inadequate sanitation, unsafe water and large number of refugees. The present study was intended to investigate the epidemiology of DF in Faisalabad, Pakistan. This was a retrospective study to measure the frequency and distribution of th...

Cluster-based case-control design refers to a design where the sampling unit is a cluster and the sampling probability depends on the responses from individuals within the cluster. Data from a cluster-based case-control design arise in many practical applications. For example, in some epidemiologic genetic studies, due to the low prevalence of the disease of interest, families with more members...

The proportions of pancreatic cancer cases attributable (or attributable risks) to tobacco smoking, high consumption of meat, low consumption of fruit, family history of pancreatic cancer, and previous history of pancreatitis were computed by using data from a casecontrol study conducted in Northern Italy. Between 1983 and 1992 a total of 362 incident, histologically confirmed exocrine pancreat...

Background Matrix metalloproteinase (MMPs) play important roles in the structural and functional properties of reproductive organs. The aim of this study is to determine the prevalence of C-1562T MMP-9 (rs3918242) gene polymorphism in fertile and infertile men. In addition, we aim to determine the association between C-1562T MMP-9 and G-1575A MMP-2 gene polymorphisms. MATERIALS AND METHODS A ...

Uma vez ocorrida a sensibilização, e a asma se manifestar clinicamente, a exposição persistente aos alérgenos se associa ao aparecimento de sintomas. Portanto, quando a doença já está estabelecida, a exposição ambiental aos alérgenos oferece risco de desencadear crises, dificultando a interpretação da associação entre a asma e a sensibilização alérgica como sendo de causa e efeito. Referências ...

Mechanical stress producing head injury is associated with Parkinson’s disease, suggesting that relations with other physical hazards such as whole-body vibration (WBV) should be tested. In this study, the authors evaluated the relation between occupational exposure to WBV and Parkinson’s disease. A population-based casecontrol study with 403 cases and 405 controls was conducted in British Colu...

Aim. Antenatal glucocorticoid therapy (AGT) has been commonly used recently. However, this therapy has severe harmful effects such as maternal hyperglycemia. In Japan, ritodrine hydrochloride has been used as a tocolytic agent. In this study, we performed retrospective casecontrol study to clarify whether concomitant use of ritodrine and glucocorticoid was safe to pregnant women without diabete...

Background: Alcohol consumption increases breast cancer risk. Some studies suggested that this association is stronger or limited to tumors expressing estrogen receptors (ER). Methods: We investigated the role of alcohol according to ER and progesterone receptor (PR) status in a casecontrol study on breast cancer conducted from 1991 to 1994 in three Italian areas. Cases were 989 women with inci...

Different forms of antagonism are classified in terms of response types and are related to the sufficient-cause framework. These forms of antagonism include ‘‘synergy under recoding of an exposure,’’ ‘‘synergism under recoding of the outcome,’’ and so-called ‘‘competing response types,’’ with synergism itself conceived of as causal co-action within the sufficient-cause framework. In this paper,...