“
“SETTING: Resource-limited settings in sub-Saharan African countries.
OBJECTIVE: To utilise African giant pouched rats (Cricetomys gambianus) for the diagnosis of tuberculosis (TB) in human sputum.
DESIGN: A specially designed cage with 10 sniffing holes and cassette-carrier was used. The sputum samples were put in the sample cassette, containing 10 samples in line, placed under matching sniffing holes. Rats were trained https://www.selleckchem.com/products/LBH-589.html to sniff each consecutive sample, and indicate TB positives by fixing their nose for 5 seconds at the sniffing hole. This behaviour was maintained by food reinforcement
upon correct indications. A total of 3416 samples were used.
RESULTS: Of the 20 trained rats, 18 were able to discriminate positive from negative sputum samples, with average daily sensitivities ranging from 72% to 100%, and average daily false-positives ranging from 0.7% to 8.1%. The use of multiple rats significantly increased sensitivity and negative predictive value.
CONCLUSION: Utilising trained sniffer rats for TB detection is a potentially faster screening method and is at least as sensitive as
smear microscopy. This method could therefore be suitable for active case finding, especially where large numbers of samples are to be analysed in resource-limited settings, to complement existing diagnostic techniques.”
“Background: Identification of high-risk individuals is crucial for effective implementation of type 2 diabetes mellitus prevention programs. Several studies have shown that multivariable predictive selleck chemicals llc functions perform as well as the 2-hour post-challenge glucose in identifying these high-risk individuals.
The performance of these functions in Asian populations, where the rise in prevalence of type 2 diabetes mellitus is expected to be the greatest in the next several decades, is relatively unknown.
Methods: Using data from three Asian populations in Singapore, we compared the performance of three multivariate predictive models in terms of their discriminatory power and calibration quality: the San Antonio Health Study model, Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities model and the Framingham model.
Results: The San Antonio Health Study and Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities models had better discriminative powers than using only fasting plasma glucose or the 2-hour AC220 in vitro post-challenge glucose. However, the Framingham model did not perform significantly better than fasting glucose or the 2-hour post-challenge glucose. All published models suffered from poor calibration. After recalibration, the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities model achieved good calibration, the San Antonio Health Study model showed a significant lack of fit in females and the Framingham model showed a significant lack of fit in both females and males.
Conclusions: We conclude that adoption of the ARIC model for Asian populations is feasible and highly recommended when local prospective data is unavailable.