Aims. To investigate the impact of blood type, functional polymorphism (T-1676C) of the COX-1 gene promoter, and clinical factors on the development of peptic ulcer during cardiovascular prophylaxis with low-dose aspirin. Methods. In a case-control study including 111 low-dose aspirin users with peptic ulcers and 109 controls (asymptomatic aspirin users), the polymorphism (T-1676C) of the COX-1 gene promoter was genotyped, and blood type, H pylori status, and clinical factors were assessed. Results. Univariate analysis showed no significant differences in genotype frequencies of the COX-1 gene at position -1676 between the peptic ulcer group and control group. Multivariate analysis revealed that blood type O, advanced age, history of peptic ulcer, and concomitant use of NSAID were the independent risk factors for the development of peptic ulcer with the odds ratios of the 2.1, 3.1, 27.6, and 2.9, respectively. Conclusion. The C-1676T polymorphism in the COX-1 gene promoter is not a risk factor for ulcer formation during treatment with low-dose aspirin. Blood type O, advanced age, history of peptic ulcer, and concomitant use of NSAID are of independent significance in predicting peptic ulcer development during treatment with low-dose aspirin.

This paper presents a novel yet high-performance diascopic illumination configuration for simultaneously detecting cells of different sizes and different fluorescence labeling in a microfluidic chip. An objective-type dark-field condenser equipped with a low-cost tungsten bulb light source with continuous wavelengths (400 to 900 nm) and an UV-Vis-NIR spectrometer is used for detecting the multispectral signals from various particles and cells. With this approach, continuous cell counting and spectra analyzing are realized in a single channel without using any spatial filter and delicate optical detectors. Results show that the developed system is capable of identifying different labeled particle and cell samples by extracting the information side-scatter, absorption, and fluorescence from the information-rich spectra. This proposed system provides an efficient multicolor detection for identification and classification of a microflow cytometer chip.