MATERIAL AND METHODS: Over a period of eight years, from January 1997 to December 2004, 126 hypospadias patients were treated, 90 of these patients received two-stage repairs and 36 patients received single-stage repairs. HOSE questionnaire and uroflowmetry data were obtained to evaluate the long-term outcome of the two-stage hypospadias repairs.
RESULTS: The age at the time of assessment ranged from 8 to 23 years-old, with a mean follow-up time of 39.78 months. Thirty-five patients had proximal hypospadias, and 20 had distal hypospadias. Of the 55 patients who received complete two-stage hypospadias repair and agreed to participate in the study, nineteen patients had acceptable HOSE scores and 36 patients had non-acceptable scores. The uroflow rates of 43 of the subjects were below the fifth percentile in three patients, equivocal (between the 5(th) and 25(th) percentile) in four patients and above the 25(th) percentile in 36 patients.
CONCLUSION: Two-stage repair is a suitable technique for all types of hypospadias with varying outcomes. HOSE and uroflowmetry are simple, easy, non-invasive and non-expensive tools for objectively assessing the long-term outcomes of hypospadias repair.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: The purpose of this study was to investigate the immunohistochemical expression of SMO in 112 bladder cancer cases and determine their association with demographic and clinicopathological parameters. Bladder cancer tissues were obtained from the Hospital Kuala Lumpur.
RESULTS: SMO was expressed in the cytoplasm of all cases of bladder cancer. 6 cases (5.4%) showed low expression, while 106 cases (94.6%) showed high expression. Positive expression of SMO protein was correlated with a few variables which include grade and stage of tumour, lymph node metastasis and distant metastasis. SMO expression showed statistically significant association with higher grade (p=0.001) and higher stage (p=0.042) of bladder cancer. SMO expression also showed borderline association with lymph node metastasis (p=0.056).
CONCLUSION: These findings indicate that SMO expression may be a poor prognostic marker in bladder cancer.
METHODS: A total of 219 neonates with suspected clinical indications of congenital toxoplasmosis and/or cCMV infections from January 2022 to December 2022 were enrolled. The first samples for IgM and IgG antibodies were screened by electrochemiluminescence immunoassay. For positive results indicative of congenital toxoplasmosis and cCMV infections, second serum samples were requested and tested within a period of 2-4 weeks after testing the first sample.
RESULTS: From the 219 first serum samples, the overall seroprevalence of congenital toxoplasmosis antibodies in suspected cases was 53%; meanwhile, the overall seroprevalence of cCMV in the suspected cases was 98.6%. The results of the paired serum sample collected for investigating congenital toxoplasmosis cases revealed that 47% of the cases presented no serological evidence of exposure while the remaining 53% of cases might have acquired passive immunity from the mother. For cCMV, the number of cases with no serological evidence of exposure was 1.4%, whereas acute infection was 1.8% and possible passive immunity from the mother represented 96.8%.
CONCLUSION: This study found a high seroprevalence of congenital toxoplasmosis and cCMV infections, probably because they are suspected cases. This study also indicates that using paired sample analysis in the categorisation of cases can aid in accurate diagnosis and more effective treatment.