purpose: to evaluate topographic corneal changes in relatives of patients with keratoconus (kcn). methods: this study was performed on 300 eyes of 150 relatives of 45 kcn patients. complete slit lamp examination, refraction, and corneal topography was performed on all eyes. the topographic indices for diagnosis of keratoconus was based on rabinowitz criteria. results: the study included 84 (56%...

BACKGROUND Hypertension is more common in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) than in the general population. It is unknown whether hypertension is due to RA-related medications or the disease itself. Therefore, we sought to investigate associations between RA-related autoantibodies, specifically antibodies to citrullinated protein antigens (ACPA) and systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diast...

Sister chromatid exchange (SCE) analysis is a sensitive measure of chromosome damage induced by many agents which damage DNA. These agents have been reported to be present in the serum of patients with scleroderma. Chromosome aberrations are thought to be more common in cells of these patients and their relatives than in cells of controls. We have observed that the SCE frequencies in blood lymp...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE South Asians in the United Kingdom suffer from an increased mortality from cerebrovascular disease compared with whites. Evidence suggests that the relatives of white stroke patients are at increased risk of vascular disease. The aim of this study was to investigate atherothrombotic risk factors in the first-degree relatives of South Asian patients suffering from ischemic...

The relationship between salt homeostasis and blood pressure has remained difficult to establish from epidemiological studies of the general population. Recently, mendelian forms of hypertension have demonstrated that mutations that increase renal salt balance lead to higher blood pressure, suggesting that mutations that decrease the net salt balance might have the converse effect. Gitelman's s...

BACKGROUND Studies of survival following breast and ovarian cancers in BRCA1 and/or BRCA2 mutation carriers have yielded conflicting results. We undertook an analysis of a community-based study of Ashkenazi Jews to investigate the effect of three founder mutations in BRCA1 and BRCA2 on survival among patients with breast or ovarian cancer. METHODS We collected blood samples and questionnaire ...

CONTEXT DNA analysis has been used with success in the identification of carbonized corpses and victims of large accidents. The analysis requires relatives of crash victims to donate blood for analysis. The relatives are generally willing contribute to the identification by giving a blood sample. OBJECTIVE To describe the use of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for genetic characterization...