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Fulltext Ultrasound guided percutaneous biopsies of suspected mediastinal lesions

Samad SA, Sharifah NA, Zulfiqar MA, Maimunah A, Yahya A, Zainudin W

Med J Malaysia, 1993 Dec;48(4):421-6.
PMID: 8183166

Realtime ultrasonography with general purpose sector transducer was used to guide 87 percutaneous biopsies on 82 patients with lesions suspected to be mediastinal masses on plain chest radiographs. In seven patients who had dyspnea the biopsies were done in erect or semi-erect sitting positions. Definitive diagnosis was obtained from 66 lesions (80.5%) where 46 (70.0%) were mediastinal and the remaining 20 lesions (30.0%) arising from the lung. Of the 46 mediastinal lesions where specific diagnosis were made, 42 (91.0%) were anterior and four (0.9%) posterior mediastinal lesions. The majority of these anterior mediastinal masses were lymphomatous nodes followed by germ cell tumours whereas all four posterior mediastinal masses were neurogenic. Of the lung lesions, 19 were primary malignancies. The remaining lung lesion which was located posteriorly was cryptococcus infection. One patient developed massive hemothorax, but subsequently recovered. No significant complications were encountered in the remaining patients. Surgery was carried on 11 patients. There is correlation between definitive diagnosis from percutaneous biopsy and final diagnosis after surgery in 80% of patients. It is proposed that all percutaneous biopsies for thoracic masses which abut the chest wall and cause mediastinal widening on a plain chest radiograph be guided by ultrasound. It can be effectively accomplished with ease and safety even without the use of dedicated biopsy ultrasound probes or biopsy attachments, and on patients in erect or semi-erect positions.
Fulltext The role of ductography in patients with nipple discharge

Zulfiqar MA, Nair S, Lily M, Norizan MA, Samad SA

Med J Malaysia, 1996 Dec;51(4):457-61.
PMID: 10968034

The main objective of this study is to illustrate the role of ductography in the management of nipple discharge. Thirty-six patients had ductography for the investigation of blood-stained or serous nipple discharge. The ductogram findings were reviewed. Ductography showed an intraductal lesion in 13 patients, duct ectasia in 16 and normal ducts in 7. Fourteen patients had surgery. Eight had preoperative ductography using a mixture of methylene blue and contrast media. Histology revealed 5 cases of duct papilloma, 2 cases of epithelial hyperplasia, 4 cases of fibrocystic change and 3 cases of duct ectasia. Twenty had follow-up without surgery and of these, the nipple discharge ceased in 11 patients. Two patients did not come for follow-up. Ductography has a significant role in the management of nipple discharge. Firstly, surgery might be averted in patients with normal ducts or duct ectasia on ductography. Secondly, intraductal methylene blue will demonstrate the abnormal ductal system to the surgeon and allow for a less radical surgery.
Fulltext Can complementary and alternative medicines be beneficial in the treatment of COVID-19 through improving immune system function?

Nilashi M, Samad S, Yusuf SYM, Akbari E

J Infect Public Health, 2020 Jun;13(6):893-896.
PMID: 32451258 DOI: 10.1016/j.jiph.2020.05.009
Fulltext When abusive supervision affects creative idea sharing: Understanding the role of employee cheating and organizational justice

Batool S, Izwar Ibrahim H, Adeel A, Jiang M, Samad S

Heliyon, 2024 Jan 15;10(1):e22781.
PMID: 38116191 DOI: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e22781

Getting employees to share their creative ideas has long been recognized as a vital source of organizational effectiveness. This research uses the conservation of resources theory to investigate how employee's creative idea sharing is affected by abusive supervision. Data for this research was collected from 209 employees and their immediate supervisors of generic nurses and medical dispensers of Southern Punjab public sector hospitals working under the Ministry of national health services regulation and Coordination. Data were then analyzed with the AMOS software package for simple regression and moderated mediation. This study found that with the increase in abusive supervision, employees develop cheating behavior, diminishing probability of sharing their creative ideas with coworkers. Along these lines, organizational justice moderates this relationship and attenuates the negative indirect effect of abusive supervision on creative idea sharing. The researchers recommended that organizations should develop training programs or coaching sessions for leaders to make them equip with essential interpersonal skills that can eradicate abusive supervision. Research implications, limitations, and future research directions are also discussed.
Fulltext Coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) and its natural environmental impacts

Rupani PF, Nilashi M, Abumalloh RA, Asadi S, Samad S, Wang S

Int J Environ Sci Technol (Tehran), 2020;17(11):4655-4666.
PMID: 32904898 DOI: 10.1007/s13762-020-02910-x

Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) is the official name of a respiratory infectious disease caused by a new coronavirus that started first in Wuhan, China, and outspread worldwide with an unexpectedly fast speed. Flights have been canceled worldwide and transportation has been closed nationwide and across international borders. As a consequence, the economic activity has been stopped and stock markets have been dropped. The COVID-19 lockdown has several social and economic effects. Additionally, COVID-19 has caused several impacts on global migration. On the other hand, such lockdown, along with minimal human mobility, has impacted the natural environment somewhat positively. Overall carbon emissions have dropped, and the COVID-19 lockdown has led to an improvement in air quality and a reduction in water pollution in many cities around the globe. A summary of the existing reports of the environmental impacts of COVID-19 pandemic are discussed and the important findings are presented focusing on several aspects: air pollution, waste management, air quality improvements, waste fires, wildlife, global migration, and sustainability.
Brain calcification in patients with cerebral lupus

Raymond AA, Zariah AA, Samad SA, Chin CN, Kong NC

Lupus, 1996 Apr;5(2):123-8.
PMID: 8743125 DOI: 10.1177/096120339600500207

Cerebral lupus (CL) is a common cause of morbidity and mortality in patients with SLE. The brain CTs of 27 consecutive adult patients with SLE and various neurological presentations were reviewed. The median age and duration of neurological symptoms at the time of the brain CT were 30 years (range = 14-51 years) and six days (range = 1 day-22 years), respectively. Eleven patients (41%) had normal CTs. The abnormalities in the remaining patients could be divided into six categories: (a) cerebral atrophy alone (two patients); (b) calcification alone (three patients); (c) infarct(s) alone (five patients); (d) cerebral atrophy and calcification (three patients); (e) cerebral atrophy and infarct(s) (one patient) and (f) cerebral atrophy, calcification and infarct(s) (two patients). Altogether eight patients (30%) (age range = 17-47 years) had intracerebral calcification: the globus pallidus was involved in all, putamen in two, head of the caudate nucleus in one, thalamus in one, centrum semiovale in two and cerebellum in three patients. Two patients had extensive calcifications of most of the basal ganglia, centrum semiovale and cerebellum. There was no relationship between the presence/degree of calcification and age of patients/duration or type of neurological presentation. The pathogenesis of cerebral calcification in CL is unknown. Cerebral lupus must now be included in the differential diagnosis of intracerebral calcification.
Fulltext A report of the first three cases of diffuse panbronchiolitis in Malaysia

Zainudin BM, Roslina AM, Fadilah SA, Samad SA, Sufarlan AW, Isa MR

Med J Malaysia, 1996 Mar;51(1):136-40.
PMID: 10967994

Three cases of diffuse panbronchiolitis (DPB) occurring in two Malaysian Chinese patients and one Malay patient are reported. They had similar clinical, radiological and physiological features which are characteristic of DPB. The diagnosis in one of the cases was confirmed histologically by transbronchial lung biopsy. These could be the first three cases identified in Malaysia.
Fulltext The impact of coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) on education: The role of virtual and remote laboratories in education

Abumalloh RA, Asadi S, Nilashi M, Minaei-Bidgoli B, Nayer FK, Samad S, et al.

Technol Soc, 2021 Nov;67:101728.
PMID: 34538984 DOI: 10.1016/j.techsoc.2021.101728

To avoid the spread of the COVID-19 crisis, many countries worldwide have temporarily shut down their academic organizations. National and international closures affect over 91% of the education community of the world. E-learning is the only effective manner for educational institutions to coordinate the learning process during the global lockdown and quarantine period. Many educational institutions have instructed their students through remote learning technologies to face the effect of local closures and promote the continuity of the education process. This study examines the expected benefits of e-learning during the COVID-19 pandemic by providing a new model to investigate this issue using a survey collected from the students at Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University. Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) was employed on 179 useable responses. This study applied Push-Pull-Mooring theory and examined how push, pull, and mooring variables impact learners to switch to virtual and remote educational laboratories. The Protection Motivation theory was employed to explain how the potential health risk and environmental threat can influence the expected benefits from e-learning services. The findings revealed that the push factor (environmental threat) is significantly related to perceived benefits. The pull factors (e-learning motivation, perceived information sharing, and social distancing) significantly impact learners' benefits. The mooring factor, namely perceived security, significantly impacts learners' benefits.
Fulltext Recommendation agents and information sharing through social media for coronavirus outbreak

Nilashi M, Asadi S, Minaei-Bidgoli B, Ali Abumalloh R, Samad S, Ghabban F, et al.

Telemat Inform, 2021 Aug;61:101597.
PMID: 34887615 DOI: 10.1016/j.tele.2021.101597

The novel outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) was an unexpected event for tourism in the world as well as tourism in the Netherlands. In this situation, the travelers' decision-making for tourism destinations was heavily affected by this global event. Social media usage has played an essential role in travelers' decision-making and increased the awareness of travel-related risks from the COVID-19 outbreak. Online consumer media for the outbreak of COVID-19 has been a crucial source of information for travelers. In the current situation, tourists are using electronic word of mouth (eWOM) more and more for travel planning. Opinions provided by peer travelers for the outbreak of COVID-19 tend to reduce the possibility of poor decisions. Nevertheless, the increasing number of reviews per experience makes reading all feedback hard to make an informed decision. Accordingly, recommendation agents developed by machine learning techniques can be effective in the analysis of such social big data for the identification of useful patterns from the data, knowledge discovery, and real-time service recommendations. The current research aims to adopt a framework for the recommendation agents through topic modeling to uncover the most important dimensions of COVID-19 reviews in the Netherland forums in TripAdvisor. This study demonstrates how social networking websites and online reviews can be effective in unexpected events for travelers' decision making. We conclude with the implications of our study for future research and practice.
Leaders' ambition and followers' cheating behavior: The role of performance pressure and leader identification

Adeel A, Kee DMH, Mubashir AS, Samad S, Daghriri YQ

Front Psychol, 2023;14:982328.
PMID: 36777215 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.982328

PURPOSE: We seek to understand why and how leaders' actions that are positive from organizational perspectives, drive to engage employees in cheating behaviors.
DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH: The proposed mediated moderation model was tested in two separate studies, study 1 and study 2, with data collected from police officers and employees of Islamic banking respectively, and then analyzed with Mplus for random coefficient models for direct effects, indirect effects, and for mediated moderation.
FINDINGS: It was found that leaders' ambitions may enhance performance pressure on the subordinates, which in turn promotes their cheating behavior. Overall, we found that the traditional view of ambition theory only emphasizes good mechanisms such as motivation. However, to integrate with a social identity perspective, ambition would also cause pressure and pressure rather than motivation. Additionally, leaders' ambitions are more strongly and positively related to the performance pressure and cheating behaviors of employees when subordinates also have high leader identification. The findings of this research suggested that leaders' positive workplace behavior could also spawn subordinates' unethical behaviors.
PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS: Through this research, we can help policymakers understand that leaders' positive desire in general and ambition, in particular, may not be necessarily associated with subordinates' positive behaviors. Our results revealed that internalized with performance pressure, the leaders' ambition is associated with subordinates' cheating behavior. The findings of this research will help policymakers understand what might be promoting unethical behavior of employees. The cheating behavior of employees is not a singular level phenomenon of subordinates, it could also be triggered by contextual factors. Therefore, in developing policies for reducing the chance of cheating at work, the policymakers should also focus on the contextual factors that might be promoting cheating.
ORIGINALITY/VALUE: Ambitious leaders tend to demonstrate high performance, also, performance pressure literature focuses efforts of the employees toward high performance. The dark side of these lines of researches is still underexplored. We shifted the conventional focus of understanding to the positive side of ambition and performance pressure by explaining the potential cost in the form of employees' enhanced cheating behavior. The interplay between the relationship between leaders' ambition and subordinates' perception of leader identification also enhanced our understating about the boundary condition of the relationship between leaders' ambition, performance pressure, and cheating behavior of subordinates.
Fulltext Predicting Parkinson's Disease Progression: Evaluation of Ensemble Methods in Machine Learning

Nilashi M, Abumalloh RA, Minaei-Bidgoli B, Samad S, Yousoof Ismail M, Alhargan A, et al.

J Healthc Eng, 2022;2022:2793361.
PMID: 35154618 DOI: 10.1155/2022/2793361

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a complex neurodegenerative disease. Accurate diagnosis of this disease in the early stages is crucial for its initial treatment. This paper aims to present a comparative study on the methods developed by machine learning techniques in PD diagnosis. We rely on clustering and prediction learning approaches to perform the comparative study. Specifically, we use different clustering techniques for PD data clustering and support vector regression ensembles to predict Motor-UPDRS and Total-UPDRS. The results are then compared with the other prediction learning approaches, multiple linear regression, neurofuzzy, and support vector regression techniques. The comparative study is performed on a real-world PD dataset. The prediction results of data analysis on a PD real-world dataset revealed that expectation-maximization with the aid of SVR ensembles can provide better prediction accuracy in relation to decision trees, deep belief network, neurofuzzy, and support vector regression combined with other clustering techniques in the prediction of Motor-UPDRS and Total-UPDRS.
The nexus between quality of customer relationship management systems and customers' satisfaction: Evidence from online customers' reviews

Nilashi M, Abumalloh RA, Ahmadi H, Samad S, Alrizq M, Abosaq H, et al.

Heliyon, 2023 Nov;9(11):e21828.
PMID: 38034804 DOI: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e21828

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a method of management that aims to establish, develop, and improve relationships with targeted customers in order to maximize corporate profitability and customer value. There have been many CRM systems in the market. These systems are developed based on the combination of business requirements, customer needs, and industry best practices. The impact of CRM systems on the customers' satisfaction and competitive advantages as well as tangible and intangible benefits are widely investigated in the previous studies. However, there is a lack of studies to assess the quality dimensions of these systems to meet an organization's CRM strategy. This study aims to investigate customers' satisfaction with CRM systems through online reviews. We collected 5172 online customers' reviews from 8 CRM systems in the Google play store platform. The satisfaction factors were extracted using Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) and grouped into three dimensions; information quality, system quality, and service quality. Data segmentation is performed using Learning Vector Quantization (LVQ). In addition, feature selection is performed by the entropy-weight approach. We then used the Adaptive Neuro Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS), the hybrid of fuzzy logic and neural networks, to assess the relationship between these dimensions and customer satisfaction. The results are discussed and research implications are provided.
Parkinson's disease diagnosis using deep learning: A bibliometric analysis and literature review

Abumalloh RA, Nilashi M, Samad S, Ahmadi H, Alghamdi A, Alrizq M, et al.

Ageing Res Rev, 2024 Apr;96:102285.
PMID: 38554785 DOI: 10.1016/j.arr.2024.102285

Parkinson's Disease (PD) is a progressive neurodegenerative illness triggered by decreased dopamine secretion. Deep Learning (DL) has gained substantial attention in PD diagnosis research, with an increase in the number of published papers in this discipline. PD detection using DL has presented more promising outcomes as compared with common machine learning approaches. This article aims to conduct a bibliometric analysis and a literature review focusing on the prominent developments taking place in this area. To achieve the target of the study, we retrieved and analyzed the available research papers in the Scopus database. Following that, we conducted a bibliometric analysis to inspect the structure of keywords, authors, and countries in the surveyed studies by providing visual representations of the bibliometric data using VOSviewer software. The study also provides an in-depth review of the literature focusing on different indicators of PD, deployed approaches, and performance metrics. The outcomes indicate the firm development of PD diagnosis using DL approaches over time and a large diversity of studies worldwide. Additionally, the literature review presented a research gap in DL approaches related to incremental learning, particularly in relation to big data analysis.
Fulltext What is the impact of service quality on customers' satisfaction during COVID-19 outbreak? New findings from online reviews analysis

Nilashi M, Abumalloh RA, Alghamdi A, Minaei-Bidgoli B, Alsulami AA, Thanoon M, et al.

Telemat Inform, 2021 Nov;64:101693.
PMID: 34887617 DOI: 10.1016/j.tele.2021.101693

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused major global changes both in the areas of healthcare and economics. This pandemic has led, mainly due to conditions related to confinement, to major changes in consumer habits and behaviors. Although there have been several studies on the analysis of customers' satisfaction through survey-based and online customers' reviews, the impact of COVID-19 on customers' satisfaction has not been investigated so far. It is important to investigate dimensions of satisfaction from the online customers' reviews to reveal their preferences on the hotels' services during the COVID-19 outbreak. This study aims to reveal the travelers' satisfaction in Malaysian hotels during the COVID-19 outbreak through online customers' reviews. In addition, this study investigates whether service quality during COVID-19 has an impact on hotel performance criteria and consequently customers' satisfaction. Accordingly, we develop a new method through machine learning approaches. The method is developed using text mining, clustering, and prediction learning techniques. We use Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) for big data analysis to identify the voice-of-the-customer, Expectation-Maximization (EM) for clustering, and ANFIS for satisfaction level prediction. In addition, we use Higher-Order Singular Value Decomposition (HOSVD) for missing value imputation. The data was collected from TripAdvisor regarding the travelers' concerns in the form of online reviews on the COVID-19 outbreak and numerical ratings on hotel services from different perspectives. The results from the analysis of online customers' reviews revealed that service quality during COVID-19 has an impact on hotel performance criteria and consequently customers' satisfaction. In addition, the results showed that although the customers are always seeking hotels with better performance, they are also concerned with the quality of related services in the COVID-19 outbreak.
Customer satisfaction with Restaurants Service Quality during COVID-19 outbreak: A two-stage methodology

Zibarzani M, Abumalloh RA, Nilashi M, Samad S, Alghamdi OA, Nayer FK, et al.

Technol Soc, 2022 Aug;70:101977.
PMID: 36187884 DOI: 10.1016/j.techsoc.2022.101977

Online reviews have been used effectively to understand customers' satisfaction and preferences. COVID-19 crisis has significantly impacted customers' satisfaction in several sectors such as tourism and hospitality. Although several research studies have been carried out to analyze consumers' satisfaction using survey-based methodologies, consumers' satisfaction has not been well explored in the event of the COVID-19 crisis, especially using available data in social network sites. In this research, we aim to explore consumers' satisfaction and preferences of restaurants' services during the COVID-19 crisis. Furthermore, we investigate the moderating impact of COVID-19 safety precautions on restaurants' quality dimensions and satisfaction. We applied a new approach to achieve the objectives of this research. We first developed a hybrid approach using clustering, supervised learning, and text mining techniques. Learning Vector Quantization (LVQ) was used to cluster customers' preferences. To predict travelers' preferences, decision trees were applied to each segment of LVQ. We used a text mining technique; Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA), for textual data analysis to discover the satisfaction criteria from online customers' reviews. After analyzing the data using machine learning techniques, a theoretical model was developed to inspect the relationships between the restaurants' quality factors and customers' satisfaction. In this stage, Partial Least Squares (PLS) technique was employed. We evaluated the proposed approach using a dataset collected from the TripAdvisor platform. The outcomes of the two-stage methodology were discussed and future research directions were suggested according to the limitations of this study.
Fulltext COVID-19 and sustainable development goals: A bibliometric analysis and SWOT analysis in Malaysian context

Nilashi M, Ali Abumalloh R, Mohd S, Nurlaili Farhana Syed Azhar S, Samad S, Hang Thi H, et al.

Telemat Inform, 2023 Jan;76:101923.
PMID: 36510580 DOI: 10.1016/j.tele.2022.101923

The COVID-19 crisis has been a core threat to the lives of billions of individuals over the world. The COVID-19 crisis has influenced governments' aims to meet UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs); leading to exceptional conditions of fragility, poverty, job loss, and hunger all over the world. This study aims to investigate the current studies that concentrate on the COVID-19 crisis and its implications on SDGs using a bibliometric analysis approach. The study also deployed the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) approach to perform a systematic analysis of the SDGs, with an emphasis on the COVID-19 crisis impact on Malaysia. The results of the study indicated the unprecedented obstacles faced by countries to meet the UN's SDGs in terms of implementation, coordination, trade-off decisions, and regional issues. The study also stressed the impact of COVID-19 on the implementation of the SDGs focusing on the income, education, and health aspects. The outcomes highlighted the emerging opportunities of the crisis that include an improvement in the health sector, the adoption of online modes in education, the swift digital transformation, and the global focus on environmental issues. Our study demonstrated that, in the post-crisis time, the ratio of citizens in poverty could grow up more than the current national stated values. We stressed the need to design an international agreement to reconsider the implementation of SDGs, among which, are strategic schemes to identify vital and appropriate policies.
Fulltext A literature review on beneficial role of vitamins and trace elements: Evidence from published clinical studies

Taheri S, Asadi S, Nilashi M, Ali Abumalloh R, Ghabban NMA, Mohd Yusuf SY, et al.

J Trace Elem Med Biol, 2021 Sep;67:126789.
PMID: 34044222 DOI: 10.1016/j.jtemb.2021.126789

COVID-19 is a kind of SARS-CoV-2 viral infectious pneumonia. This research aims to perform a bibliometric analysis of the published studies of vitamins and trace elements in the Scopus database with a special focus on COVID-19 disease. To achieve the goal of the study, network and density visualizations were used to introduce an overall picture of the published literature. Following the bibliometric analysis, we discuss the potential benefits of vitamins and trace elements on immune system function and COVID-19, supporting the discussion with evidence from published clinical studies. The previous studies show that D and A vitamins demonstrated a higher potential benefit, while Selenium, Copper, and Zinc were found to have favorable effects on immune modulation in viral respiratory infections among trace elements. The principles of nutrition from the findings of this research could be useful in preventing and treating COVID-19.
Evidence for a general-purpose genotype in Candida albicans, highly prevalent in multiple geographical regions, patient types and types of infection

Schmid J, Herd S, Hunter PR, Cannon RD, Yasin MSM, Samad S, et al.

Microbiology (Reading), 1999 Sep;145 ( Pt 9):2405-2413.
PMID: 10517593 DOI: 10.1099/00221287-145-9-2405

Epidemiological studies, using the probe Ca3, have shown that in a given patient population a single cluster of genetically related Candida albicans isolates usually predominates. The authors have investigated whether these local clusters are part of a single group, geographically widespread and highly prevalent as an aetiological agent of various types of candidiasis. An unrooted neighbour-joining tree of 266 infection-causing C. albicans isolates (each from a different individual) from 12 geographical regions in 6 countries was created, based on genetic distances generated by Ca3 fingerprinting. Thirty-seven per cent of all isolates formed a single genetically homogeneous cluster (cluster A). The remainder of isolates were genetically diverse. Using the maximum branch length within cluster A as a cut-off, they could be divided into 37 groups, whose prevalence ranged between 0.3% and 9%. Strains from cluster A were highly prevalent in all but one geographical region, with a mean prevalence across all regions of 41%. When isolates were separated into groups based on patient characteristics or type of infection, strains from cluster A had a prevalence exceeding 27% in each group, and their mean prevalence was 43% across all patient characteristics. These data provide evidence that cluster A constitutes a general-purpose genotype, which is geographically widespread and acts as a predominant aetiological agent of all forms of candidiasis in all categories of patients surveyed.
Fulltext Achieving cervical cancer elimination: The simulated impacts of HPV vaccination and transitioning from liquid-based cytology to HPV-based screening test

Balqis-Ali NZ, Anis-Syakira J, Fun WH, Mohd Said Z, Abdul Samad S, Zainal Abidin N, et al.

PLoS One, 2024;19(7):e0307880.
PMID: 39052665 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0307880

The Ministry of Health Malaysia aims to fully replace liquid-based cytology (LBC) with Human Papillomavirus (HPV) tests and increase the screening coverage from a baseline of 25% to 40% by 2023, followed by a 10% yearly increment until 70% coverage. This transition requires proper planning, including the number of tests needed and budget allocation. This study aims to simulate different transition strategies involving the shift from LBC to HPV testing with expanded screening coverage to predict their impact on cervical cancer elimination in Malaysia. A system dynamics model was developed to simulate the transition from LBC to HPV testing and HPV vaccination coverage in Malaysia. The dynamic model utilised local epidemiological data, published research, and expert opinion when data was unavailable. The simulation showed that a combination of high HPV vaccination coverage and transitioning fully to five-yearly HPV testing by 2030, coupled with a 70% screening uptake by 2040, would accelerate cancer elimination in Malaysia by 18 years with an estimated screening cost of MYR1.81 billion equivalent to USD 411 millions compared to the baseline of using LBC as the primary screening method (MYR1.39 billion, USD 315 millions). Sustained, it would lead to averting 6,000 new cancer cases by 2070. Alternatively, conducting HPV screenings twice before age 50 would advance cervical cancer elimination by 14 years and prevent approximately 1000 new cases by 2070, with an estimated cost of MYR1.13 billion equivalent to USD 257 millions. A delay in achieving the full transition prolonged the elimination more than a delay in increasing the screening coverage. In all scenarios, yearly vaccination of 90% of girls age 13 is crucial to achieving elimination. In the Malaysian context, where HPV vaccination coverage has reached considerable levels, the evidence advocates for a full transition from LBC to HPV testing, ideally by 2030. While expanding screening coverage remains a critical factor in this endeavour, the findings unequivocally endorse prioritising the transition process. Trial registration: Trial registration number: NMRR ID-22-00187-DJU.
Fulltext Epidemiology of adult patients with atopic dermatitis in AWARE 1: A second international survey

Maspero J, De Paula Motta Rubini N, Zhang J, Sanclemente G, Amador JR, El Sayed MH, et al.

World Allergy Organ J, 2023 Mar;16(3):100724.
PMID: 37033301 DOI: 10.1016/j.waojou.2022.100724

BACKGROUND: There are gaps in our understanding of the epidemiology of atopic dermatitis (AD) in adults.
OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the prevalence and severity of AD in adults from countries/regions within Asia, Eurasia, Latin America, Middle East, and Russia.
METHODS: This international, web-based survey was performed in Argentina, Brazil, China, Colombia, Egypt, Hong Kong, Israel, Malaysia, Mexico, Russia, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, and United Arab Emirates. Questionnaires were sent to adult members of online respondent panels for determination of AD and assessment of severity. A diagnosis of AD required respondents to meet the modified United Kingdom (UK) Working Party criteria and to self-report they had a physician diagnosis of AD. Severity of AD was determined using Patient-Oriented Scoring of Atopic Dermatitis (PO-SCORAD), Patient-Oriented Eczema Measure (POEM), and Patient Global Assessment (PGA).
RESULTS: Among respondents by country/region the prevalence of AD ranged from 3.4% in Israel to 33.7% in Thailand. The prevalence was generally higher in females versus males. Severity varied by scale, although regardless of scale the proportion of respondents with mild and moderate disease was higher than severe disease. PGA consistently resulted in the lowest proportion of severe AD (range 2.4% China - 10.8% Turkey) relative to PO-SCORAD (range 13.4% China - 41.6% KSA) and POEM (range 5.1% China - 16.6% Israel).
CONCLUSIONS: This survey highlights the importance of AD in adults, with high prevalence and high morbidity among respondents and emphasizes that AD is not just a disease of childhood-there is disease persistence and chronicity in adults.

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