Determination of Oxytetracycline/Oxytetracycline Hydrochloride in Animal Feed, Fish Feed, and Veterinary Medicinal Products by Liquid Chromatography with Fluorescence Detection: Collaborative Study

A method for determining oxytetracycline (OTC) in animal feed, fish feed, and veterinary medicinal products at medicated use and contamination levels was collaboratively studied. The method is applicable to the analysis of animal feeds and mineral premixes containing levels 2 mg/kg, and fish feed containing levels 10 mg/kg. Oxytetracycline hydrochloride (OTC.HCl) is extracted from ground feed material in acidmethanol solution using mechanical agitation. After centrifugation for 5 min at 1230 g, an aliquot of the extract is diluted with water and/or acidmethanol so that the concentration of OTC.HCl is approximately the same as that in the working standard, and the solutions contain at least 50 water. Injectable veterinary medicinal materials (also called animal remedy materials) are diluted with water and/or extractant to reach the target concentration. The extracts are filtered and analyzed by reversed-phase liquid chromatography with fluorescence detection with excitation at 390 nm and emission at 512 nm. Twenty-eight test samples of medicated feeds, supplements, and drug premixes, including 4 test samples for trace-level analysis, were sent to 17 collaborators in Canada, The Netherlands, and the United States. Results were received from 11 laboratories. The RSDr values (within-laboratory repeatability) ranged from 1.26 to 9.21; RSDR values (among-laboratory reproducibility) ranged from 2.14 to 12.9, and HorRat values ranged from 0.54 to 3.02. It is recommended that this method be adopted AOAC Official First Action.

P5664Trends in incidence and mortality from atrial fibrillation across europe, 1990 - 2017

Background

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is one of the most common arrhythmias found in the general population, carrying risk of associated cardiovascular and cerebrovascular complications, and presenting a significant global health burden. Better understanding of its epidemiology may have public health implications.

Purpose

To describe trends in AF incidence and mortality throughout Europe from 1990 to 2017.

Methods

We performed a temporal analysis of data deposited in the Global Burden of Disease Study Database for countries across the European Union. We extracted age-standardised incidence and age-standardised death rates from the database and graphically inspected the data, as well as summarised the changes in trends using percentage change from the beginning of the observation period (1990) to the end of the observation period (2017).

Results

A total of 24 member states were included. In 1990, the overall median male incidence and mortality from AF were 81.4 cases per 100,000 and 5.0 deaths per 100,000 respectively. The corresponding female median incidence and mortality in 1990 were 66.3 cases per 100,000 and 7.3 deaths per 100,000 respectively. Mortality rates in 2017 were highest in Sweden and Germany. There was an increasing trend in all countries between 1990 and 2017 for both incidence and mortality. For men, the countries with the greatest percentage increases in incidence were Slovenia (+77%) and Poland (+71%). For women, the greatest increases in AF incidence were in Poland (+58%) and Estonia (+48%). The greatest percentage increases in AF related mortality were, in men, Estonia (+195%) and Sweden (+145%), and, in women, Greece (+151%) and Bulgaria (+147%).

Conclusion

AF represents a significant health burden in an aging population; general increases in incidence rates may suggest improvement in detection throughout Europe. However, AF associated mortality is more pronounced in Western Europe.

Systematic review of methods for quantifying teamwork in the operating theatre

Background

Teamwork in the operating theatre is becoming increasingly recognized as a major factor in clinical outcomes. Many tools have been developed to measure teamwork. Most fall into two categories: self‐assessment by theatre staff and assessment by observers. A critical and comparative analysis of the validity and reliability of these tools is lacking.

Methods

MEDLINE and Embase databases were searched following PRISMA guidelines. Content validity was assessed using measurements of inter‐rater agreement, predictive validity and multisite reliability, and interobserver reliability using statistical measures of inter‐rater agreement and reliability. Quantitative meta‐analysis was deemed unsuitable.

Results

Forty‐eight articles were selected for final inclusion; self‐assessment tools were used in 18 and observational tools in 28, and there were two qualitative studies. Self‐assessment of teamwork by profession varied with the profession of the assessor. The most robust self‐assessment tool was the Safety Attitudes Questionnaire (SAQ), although this failed to demonstrate multisite reliability. The most robust observational tool was the Non‐Technical Skills (NOTECHS) system, which demonstrated both test–retest reliability (P > 0·09) and interobserver reliability (Rwg = 0·96).

Conclusion

Self‐assessment of teamwork by the theatre team was influenced by professional differences. Observational tools, when used by trained observers, circumvented this.

Twenty-eight years of liaison psychiatry at a general hospital

Aims and method

A questionnaire was used to measure physician satisfaction with the unit and comparison of referral numbers and diagnoses with 1967, when the unit was new, and in 1985 when it was re-audited.

Results

Despite physicians' satisfaction with the service, the referral rate remains unchanged.

Clinical implications

Liaison psychiatry should not concern itself with trying to increase referral rates. Research into patient outcome should be a priority and guide its future direction.

Prediction of haematocrit in dried blood spots from the measurement of haemoglobin using commercially available sodium lauryl sulphate

Background When preparing dried blood spots (DBSs), haematocrit (Hct) can affect the ability of the blood to spread through the filter paper, thus resulting in varying quantities of sample being measured when fixed subpunches of the DBSs are taken. It may be important to predict the sample Hct to correct volume differences. Methods Blood (10  µL) was applied to Perkin Elmer 226® paper. The samples ( n = 165) were allowed to dry for 24 h, and the entire blood spots were cut out. Subpunch analysis was also performed on blood spots prepared from 75  µL EDTA blood, taking 6 mm subpunches centrally and peripherally from the spots ( n = 59). The spots were eluted with 100  µL water, and a 10  µL aliquot of lysate was added to sulfolyser reagent (80  µL) in a microtitre plate. Hb was measured at 550 nm using an ELISA plate reader. DBS samples were compared against blood samples measured on a routine Sysmex XN-9000 analyser. Results The Passing and Bablock regression showed Hct (DBS-predicted) = 0.99 Hct (Sysmex) -0.02, R²= 0.87. Intra-assay imprecision measured at Hct values of 0.27, 0.40 and 0.52, gave CVs of 4.1%, 2.8% and 4.2%, respectively. Inter-assay imprecision showed CVs of 6.2%, 5.2% and 4.2%, respectively. DBS samples were stable for up to two days at 60℃, one month at room temperature and six months at 4℃. Conclusion This method provides a simple and fast estimation of predicted Hct in dried blood spots.

Tolerability and Adherence Problems in Patients on a Stable Dose of Methotrexate: Results of a Multicentre Survey

INTRODUCTION

Methotrexate is commonly used in patients with inflammatory arthritis. The aim of the present study was to ascertain the prevalence of side effects that patients on methotrexate were tolerating and to establish their adherence to the medication.

METHOD

A questionnaire was developed for completion by the healthcare professional with the patient, and piloted in one centre. The questionnaire was then used in six other centres, with the addition of a question about the attractiveness of stopping methotrexate treatment. Efficacy and toxicities were scored for severity on a 10-cm visual analogue scale (VAS). Adherence to the drug was also explored.

RESULTS

The prevalence of 'any side effect' ranged from 57% to 86%. The most frequent side effects were fatigue (53%); nausea (38%); mouth ulcers (23%) and hair loss (23%). Efficacy averaged 6.5 cm on the VAS. Results from the combined survey revealed that toxicity averaged 5.9 cm for fatigue, 4.8 cm for nausea, 4.4 for mouth ulcers, 3.9 cm for hair loss and 5.7 cm for 'other' side effects. 13.5% of patients revealed that they had forgotten to take the drug for an average of two weeks, and 25% for an average of 2.5 weeks in the previous year. Participants were more likely to reveal this to a nurse than a doctor.

CONCLUSION

Patients put up with a considerable number of side effects in order to benefit from methotrexate therapy. Adherence to this drug merits further study. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Proceedings of the 15th Annual UT-KBRIN Bioinformatics Summit 2016

I1 Proceedings of the Fifteenth Annual UT- KBRIN Bioinformatics Summit 2016

Eric C. Rouchka, Julia H. Chariker, Benjamin J. Harrison, Juw Won Park

P1 CC-PROMISE: Projection onto the Most Interesting Statistical Evidence (PROMISE) with Canonical Correlation to integrate gene expression and methylation data with multiple pharmacologic and clinical endpoints

Xueyuan Cao, Stanley Pounds, Susana Raimondi, James Downing, Raul Ribeiro, Jeffery Rubnitz, Jatinder Lamba

P2 Integration of microRNA-mRNA interaction networks with gene expression data to increase experimental power

Bernie J Daigle, Jr.

P3 Designing and writing software for in silico subtractive hybridization of large eukaryotic genomes

Deborah Burgess, Stephanie Gehrlich, John C Carmen

P4 Tracking the molecular evolution of Pax gene

Nicholas Johnson; Chandrakanth Emani

P5 Identifying genetic differences in thermally dimorphic and state specific fungi using in silico genomic comparison

Stephanie Gehrlich, Deborah Burgess, John C Carmen

P6 Identification of conserved genomic regions and variation therein amongst Cetartiodactyla species using next generation sequencing

Kalpani De Silva, Michael P Heaton, Theodore S Kalbfleisch

P7 Mining physiological data to identify patients with similar medical events and phenotypes

Teeradache Viangteeravat, Rahul Mudunuri, Oluwaseun Ajayi, Fatih Şen, Eunice Y Huang

P8 Smart brief for home health monitoring

Mohammad Mohebbi, Luaire Florian, Douglas J Jackson, John F Naber

P9 Side-effect term matching for computational adverse drug reaction predictions

AKM Sabbir, Sally R Ellingson

P10 Enrichment vs robustness: A comparison of transcriptomic data clustering metrics

Yuping Lu, Charles A Phillips, Michael A Langston

P11 Deep neural networks for transcriptome-based cancer classification

Rahul K Sevakula, Raghuveer Thirukovalluru, Nishchal K. Verma, Yan Cui

P12 Motif discovery using K-means clustering

Mohammed Sayed, Juw Won Park

P13 Large scale discovery of active enhancers from nascent RNA sequencing

Jing Wang, Qi Liu, Yu Shyr

P14 Computationally characterizing genomic pipelines and benchmarking results using GATK best practices on the high performance computing cluster at the University of Kentucky

Xiaofei Zhang, Sally R Ellingson

P15 Development of approaches enabling the identification of abnormal gene expression from RNA-Seq in personalized oncology

Naresh Prodduturi, Gavin R Oliver, Diane Grill, Jie Na, Jeanette Eckel-Passow, Eric W Klee

P16 Processing RNA-Seq data of plants infected with coffee ringspot virus

Michael M Goodin, Mark Farman, Harrison Inocencio, Chanyong Jang, Jerzy W Jaromczyk, Neil Moore, Kelly Sovacool

P17 Comparative transcriptomics of three Acinetobacter baumanii clinical isolates with different antibiotic resistance patterns

Leon Dent, Mike Izban, Sammed Mandape, Shruti Sakhare, Siddharth Pratap, Dana Marshall

P18 Metagenomic assessment of possible microbial contamination in the equine reference genome assembly

M Scotty DePriest, James N MacLeod, Theodore S Kalbfleisch

P19 Molecular evolution of cancer driver genes

Chandrakanth Emani, Hanady Adam, Ethan Blandford, Joel Campbell, Joshua Castlen, Brittany Dixon, Ginger Gilbert, Aaron Hall, Philip Kreisle, Jessica Lasher, Bethany Oakes, Allison Speer, Maximilian Valentine

P20 Biorepository Laboratory Information Management System

Naga Satya V Rao Nagisetty, Rony Jose, Teeradache Viangteeravat, Robert Rooney, David Hains

Time Since Migration and HIV Risk Behaviors Among Puerto Ricans Who Inject Drugs in New York City

BACKGROUND

Among people who inject drugs (PWID) in the United States, those who initiated drug injection in Puerto Rico (immigrant Puerto Rican PWID) engage in more injection and sexual risk behaviors, and have higher HIV incidence than non-Hispanic whites.

OBJECTIVE

Understand the persistence of these HIV behaviors.

METHODS

In a cross-sectional study conducted in New York City (NYC) in 2012 (National HIV Behavioral Surveillance), PWID aged ≥18 years were recruited using Respondent-Driven Sampling, interviewed, and tested for HIV. Participants were categorized into 5 different groups: (1) US-born non-Hispanic PWID, (2) US-born Puerto Rican PWID, (3) recent immigrant Puerto Rican PWID (≤3 years in NYC), (4) medium-term immigrant Puerto Rican PWID (>3 and ≤10 years in NYC), and (5) long-term immigrant Puerto Rican PWID (>10 years in NYC). We examined the relationship between time since migrating on sexual and injection risk behaviors among immigrant Puerto Rican PWID, compared with U.S.-born Puerto Rican PWID and US-born non-Hispanic PWID. Adjusted odds ratios (aOR) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) were estimated using logistic regression.

RESULTS

A total of 481 PWID were recruited. In adjusted analyses using US-born non-Hispanic PWID as the comparison group, syringe sharing was significantly more likely among medium-term immigrants; and unprotected sex with casual partners was more likely among recent and long-term immigrants.

CONCLUSIONS

The risk-acculturation process for immigrant Puerto Rican PWID may be nonlinear and may not necessarily lead to risk reduction over time. Research is needed to better understand this process.