DRESS is a heterogeneous group of life-threatening conditions. The leading drug in DRESS in Taiwan is allopurinol. High eosinophil count and multiple underlying diseases are poor prognostic factors in patients with DRESS.

HLA-A*31:01 was reported to be associated with carbamazepine (CBZ)-induced severe cutaneous adverse reactions (SCAR), including drug reaction with eosinophilia and systemic symptoms (DRESS), Stevens-Johnson syndrome (SJS) and toxic epidermal necrolysis (TEN). We conducted an international study using consensus diagnosis criteria to enroll a total of 93 patients with CBZ-SCAR from Europe or Asia. We found that HLA-A*31:01 showed a significant association with CBZ-DRESS in Europeans (P<0.001; odds ratio (OR) (95% confidence interval (CI))=57.6 (11.0-340)), and the strong association was also found in Chinese (P<0.001; OR (95% CI)=23.0 (4.2-125)). However, HLA-A*31:01 had no association with CBZ-SJS/TEN in neither Chinese nor Europeans. By comparison, HLA-B*15:02 showed a strong association with CBZ-SJS/TEN in Chinese (P<0.001, OR (95% CI)=58.1 (17.6-192)). A meta-analysis of this and other published studies confirmed that in all populations, HLA-A*31:01 had an extremely strong association with CBZ-DRESS (P<0.001, a pooled OR (95% CI)=13.2 (8.4-20.8)), but a much weaker association with CBZ-SJS/TEN (P=0.01, OR (95% CI)=3.94 (1.4-11.5)). Our data revealed that HLA-A*31:01 is a specific predictor for CBZ-DRESS but not for CBZ-SJS/TEN. More studies are needed to investigate the genetic determinant of CBZ-SJS/TEN in Europeans. Considering the potential clinical utility, the cost-effectiveness of the combined HLA-A*31:01 and HLA-B*15:02 genetic test to prevent CBZ-SCAR in Chinese needs further investigation.

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Background There is increasing use of anti‐osteoporotic agents (AOA) worldwide for prevention or management of patients with osteoporosis. However, there have been reports of severe cutaneous adverse reactions (SCAR) induced by AOA. A recent study showed weak association between HLA and strontium ranelate (SR)‐SCAR. Objective To characterize patients with AOA‐SCAR and investigate the HLA association and utility of in vitro diagnostic methods. Methods We enrolled 16 cases with AOA‐cutaneous adverse drug reactions (cADR), including SCAR (n = 10: 8 with Stevens–Johnson syndrome [SJS] and 2 with drug rash with eosinophilia and systemic symptoms [DRESS]) and maculopapular exanthema (MPE) (n = 6) from Taiwan and Hong Kong. We analysed the clinical characteristics, outcomes, HLA alleles and in vitro testing of AOA‐SCAR, and tolerability to alternative drugs. We further performed literature review and meta‐analysis on the HLA association of AOA‐SCAR. Results Our data showed strontium ranelate is the most common causality of AOA‐SCAR in Asian populations. There was no cross‐hypersensitivity of SR‐SCAR with other AOA. HLA genotyping showed that SR‐SJS was most significantly associated with HLA‐A*33:03 (Pc = 5.17 × 10−3, OR: 25.97, 95% CI: 3.08–219.33). Meta‐analysis showed that HLA‐A*33:03 was associated with SR‐SJS (P = 5.01 × 10−5; sensitivity: 85.7%) in Asians. The sensitivity of lymphocyte activation test (LAT) for identifying the culprit drug of SR‐SJS was 83.3%. Conclusions Strontium ranelate is identified as the most notorious AOA associated with SCAR. The HLA‐A*33:03 genetic allele and LAT testing may add benefits to the diagnosis of SR‐SCAR in patients whose reaction developed while taking multiple drugs.

In this paper, an 802.11 n transmission scheme is proposed for wireless telemedicine applications. IEEE 802.11n standards, a power assignment strategy, space-time block coding (STBC), and an object composition Petri net (OCPN) model are adopted. With the proposed wireless system, G.729 audio bit streams, Joint Photographic Experts Group 2000 (JPEG 2000) clinical images, and Moving Picture Experts Group 4 (MPEG-4) video bit streams achieve a transmission bit error rate (BER) of 10-7, 10-4, and 103 simultaneously. The proposed system meets the requirements prescribed for wireless telemedicine applications. An essential feature of this proposed transmission scheme is that clinical information that requires a high quality of service (QoS) is transmitted at a high power transmission rate with significant error protection. For maximizing resource utilization and minimizing the total transmission power, STBC and adaptive modulation techniques are used in the proposed 802.11 n wireless telemedicine system. Further, low power, direct mapping (DM), low-error protection scheme, and high-level modulation are adopted for messages that can tolerate a high BER. With the proposed transmission scheme, the required reliability of communication can be achieved. Our simulation results have shown that the proposed 802.11 n transmission scheme can be used for developing effective wireless telemedicine systems.