Browsing by Author "Khan, Hafiz M.R. (TTUHSC)"
Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
- Results Per Page
- Sort Options
Item Does Survival Vary for Breast Cancer Patients in the United States? A Study from Six Randomly Selected States(2017) Khan, Hafiz M.R. (TTUHSC); Gittner, Lisaann S. (TTUHSC); Perisetti, Abhilash (TTUHSC); Saxena, Anshul; Rafiq, Aamrin (TTU); Gabbidon, Kemesha; Mende, Sarah (TTUHSC); Lyuksyutova, Maria (TTUHSC)Background. Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women. Disparities in some characteristics of breast cancer patients and their survival data for six randomly selected states in the US were examined. Materials and Methods. A probability random sampling method was used to select the records of 2,000 patients from each of six randomly selected states. Demographic and disease characteristics were extracted from the Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) database. To evaluate relationships between variables, we employed a Cox Proportional Regression to compare survival times in the different states. Results. Iowa had the highest mean age of diagnosis at 64.14 years (SE=0.324) and Georgia had the lowest at 57.97 years (SE=0.313). New Mexico had the longest mean survival time of 189.09 months (SE=20.414) and Hawaii the shortest at 119.01 (SE=5.394) months, a 70.08-month difference (5.84 years). Analysis of stage of diagnosis showed that the highest survival times for Whites and American Indians/Alaska Natives were for stage I cancers. The highest survival times for Blacks varied. Stage IV cancer consistently showed the lowest survival times. Conclusions. Differences in breast cancer characteristics across states highlight the need to understand differences between the states that result in variances in breast cancer survival.Item White matter deterioration may foreshadow impairment of emotional valence determination in early-stage Dementia of the Alzheimer type(2017) Rajmohan, Ravi (TTUHSC); Anderson, Ronald C. (TTU); Fang, Dan (TTU); Meyer, Austin G. (TTUHSC); Laengvejkal, Pavis (TTUHSC); Julayanont, Parunyou (TTUHSC); Hannabas, Greg (TTUHSC); Linton, Kitten (TTUHSC); Culberson, John (TTUHSC); Khan, Hafiz M.R. (TTUHSC); De Toledo, John (TTUHSC); Hemachandra Reddy, P. (TTUHSC); O'Boyle, Michael (TTUHSC) (TTU)In Alzheimer Disease (AD), non-verbal skills often remain intact for far longer than verbally mediated processes. Four (1 female, 3 males) participants with early-stage Clinically Diagnosed Dementia of the Alzheimer Type (CDDAT) and eight neurotypicals (NTs; 4 females, 4 males) completed the emotional valence determination test (EVDT) while undergoing BOLD functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). We expected CDDAT participants to perform just as well as NTs on the EVDT, and to display increased activity within the bilateral amygdala and right anterior cingulate cortex (r-ACC). We hypothesized that such activity would reflect an increased reliance on these structures to compensate for on-going neuronal loss in frontoparietal regions due to the disease. We used diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) to determine if white matter (WM) damage had occurred in frontoparietal regions as well. CDDAT participants had similar behavioral performance and no differences were observed in brain activity or connectivity patterns within the amygdalae or r-ACC. Decreased fractional anisotropy (FA) values were noted, however, for the bilateral superior longitudinal fasciculi and posterior cingulate cortex (PCC). We interpret these findings to suggest that emotional valence determination and non-verbal skill sets are largely intact at this stage of the disease, but signs foreshadowing future decline were revealed by possible WM deterioration. Understanding how non-verbal skill sets are altered, while remaining largely intact, offers new insights into how non-verbal communication may be more successfully implemented in the care of AD patients and highlights the potential role of DTI as a presymptomatic biomarker.