Excessive alcohol consumption is one of the leading causes of preventable death in the United States. Approximately 14% of those who use alcohol meet criteria during their lifetime for alcohol dependence, which is characterized by tolerance, withdrawal, inability to stop drinking, and continued drinking despite serious psychological or physiological problems. We explored genetic influences on alcohol dependence among 1,897 European-American and African-American subjects with alcohol dependence compared with 1,932 unrelated, alcohol-exposed, nondependent controls. Constitutional DNA of each subject was genotyped using the Illumina 1M beadchip. Fifteen SNPs yielded P < 10 −5 , but in two independent replication series, no SNP passed a replication threshold of P < 0.05. Candidate gene GABRA2 , which encodes the GABA receptor α2 subunit, was evaluated independently. Five SNPs at GABRA2 yielded nominal (uncorrected) P < 0.05, with odds ratios between 1.11 and 1.16. Further dissection of the alcoholism phenotype, to disentangle the influence of comorbid substance-use disorders, will be a next step in identifying genetic variants associated with alcohol dependence.

Low HRV partially mediates the effect of depression on survival after acute MI. This finding helps to clarify the physiological mechanisms underlying depression's role as a risk factor for mortality in patients with coronary heart disease. It also raises the possibility that treatments that improve both depression and HRV might also improve survival in these patients.

Questionnaire surveys, while more economical, typically achieve poorer response rates than interview surveys. We used data from a national volunteer cohort of young adult twins, who were scheduled for assessment by questionnaire in 1989 and by interview in 1996-2000, to identify predictors of questionnaire non-response. Out of a total of 8536 twins, 5058 completed the questionnaire survey (59% response rate), and 6255 completed a telephone interview survey conducted a decade later (73% response rate). Multinomial logit models were fitted to the interview data to identify socioeconomic, psychiatric and health behavior correlates of non-response in the earlier questionnaire survey. Male gender, education below University level, and being a dizygotic rather than monozygotic twin, all predicted reduced likelihood of participating in the questionnaire survey. Associations between questionnaire response status and psychiatric history and health behavior variables were modest, with history of alcohol dependence and childhood conduct disorder predicting decreased probability of returning a questionnaire, and history of smoking and heavy drinking more weakly associated with non-response. Body-mass index showed no association with questionnaire non-response. Despite a poor response rate to the self-report questionnaire survey, we found only limited sampling biases for most variables. While not appropriate for studies where socioeconomic variables are critical, it appears that survey by questionnaire, with questionnaire administration by telephone to non-responders, will represent a viable strategy for gene-mapping studies requiring that large numbers of relatives be screened.

Non-skin (group 2) EML appeared to be an independent favorable prognostic factor. Localized radiotherapy to the site of EML at the end of induction chemotherapy did not improve outcome.

Aims Nicotine dependence is a highly heritable disorder associated with severe medical morbidity and mortality. Recent meta-analyses have found novel genetic loci associated with cigarettes per day (CPD), a proxy for nicotine dependence. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the importance of phenotype definition (i.e. CPD versus Fagerström Test for Cigarette Dependence (FTCD) score as a measure of nicotine dependence) on genome-wide association studies of nicotine dependence. Design Genome-wide association study Setting Community sample Participants A total of 3,365 subjects who had smoked at least one cigarette were selected from the Study of Addiction: Genetics and Environment (SAGE). Of the participants, 2,267 were European Americans,999 were African Americans. Measurements Nicotine dependence defined by FTCD score ≥4, CPD Findings The genetic locus most strongly associated with nicotine dependence was rs1451240 on chromosome 8 in the region of CHRNB3 (OR=0.65, p=2.4×10−8). This association was further strengthened in a meta-analysis with a previously published dataset (combined p=6.7 ×10−16, total n=4,200).When CPD was used as an alternate phenotype, the association no longer reached genome-wide significance (β=−0.08, p=0.0007). Conclusions Daily cigarette consumption and the Fagerstrom Test for Cigarette Dependence (FTCD) show different associations with polymorphisms in genetic loci.

This study, the first to prospectively examine AHS incidence among uniformly treated patients in multiple institutions, established that as the intensity of AML therapy has increased, so has the rate of AHS. Young children, those with previous AHS bacteremias, and those receiving high-dose cytarabine are at particularly high risk of AHS bacteremia.

Despite twin studies showing that 50–70% of variation in DSM-IV cannabis dependence is attributable to heritable influences, little is known of specific genotypes that influence vulnerability to cannabis dependence. We conducted a genomewide association study of DSM-IV cannabis dependence. Association analyses of 708 DSM-IV cannabis dependent cases with 2,346 cannabis exposed nondependent controls was conducted using logistic regression in PLINK. None of the 948,142 SNPs met genomewide significance (p < E−8). The lowest p-values were obtained for polymorphisms on chromosome 17 (rs1019238 and rs1431318, p-values at E−7) in the ANKFN1 gene. While replication is required, this study represents an important first step towards clarifying the biological underpinnings of cannabis dependence.

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