BACKGROUND: Type 2 diabetes is now recognized as a major public health concern but its burden on society is under-researched. METHODS: T(2)ARDIS was a postal survey of 1578 people with type 2 diabetes across four UK centres, incorporating measures of resource use, treatment satisfaction and health-related quality of life (HrQoL). The findings included data on the EQ-5D that enabled the HrQoL burden of the disease to be established by comparison with equivalent data for the general population and the diabetic population as a whole from the 1996 Health Survey of England. RESULTS: The results indicate a significant deficit experienced by people with type 2 diabetes vs. their age group peers in the general population. The proportion of T(2)ARDIS respondents reporting problems increases in relation to the presence of complications, and microvascular complications appear to have more impact than macrovascular complications. CONCLUSIONS: This confirms the need for treatment policies to focus on reducing the risk of such complications and hence improve patients' HrQoL.

Age Distribution↗

PubMedDate not supplied

[Hypermethylation of the human calcitonin gene as a molecular marker in acute lymphoid leukemia].

HpaII/MspI blot-hybridization analysis of the 5'-end region of the calcitonin (CT) gene methylation in cells of bone marrow and peripheral blood of patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemias (ALL) has been carried out. ALLs are accompanied by hypermethylation of the inner cytosine in the CCGG sequences of this region of the CT gene. The level of hypermethylation of the CT gene corresponded to the degree of disease progression and malignancy. At a long-term remission, hypermethylation of the CT gene is not observed. In case of primary resistance or if the complete remission has not been achieved the CT gene remained hypermethylated. It has been shown that in relapse the normal CT gene methylation pattern reversed to hypermethylation. This phenomenon was detected 1-8 months before the obvious clinical and laboratory signs of the disease progression (relapse). The large size of abnormal HpaII-fragments of the 5'-end region of the calcitonin gene had a direct correlation with the malignancy status of ALL.

Blotting, Southern↗

PubMedDate not supplied