Influencia de las características individuales y de las condiciones laborales en la gravedad de las lesiones por accidente de trabajo registradas en Andalucía en 2003

Background. The study of the severity of occupational injuries is very important for the establishment of prevention plans. The aim of this paper is to analyze the distribution of occupational injuries by a) individual factors b) work place characteristics and c) working conditions and to analyze the severity of occupational injuries by this characteristics in men and women in Andalusia. Methods. Injury data came from the accident registry of the Ministry of Labor and Social Issues in 2003. Dependent variable: the severity of the injury: slight, serious, very serious and fatal; the independent variables: the characteristics of the worker, company data, and the accident itself. Bivariate and multivariate analysis were done to estimate the probability of serious, very serious and fatal injury, related to other variables, through odds ratio (OR), and using a 95% confidence interval (CI 95%). Results. The 82,4% of the records were men and 17,6% were women, of whom the 78,1% are unskilled manual workers, compared to 44,9% of men. The men belonging to class I have a higher probability of more severe lesions (OR = 1,67, 95% CI = 1,17 – 2,38). Conclusions. The severity of the injury is associated with sex, age and type of injury. In men it is also related with the professional situation, the place where the accident happened, an unusual job, the size and the characteristics of the company and the social class, and in women with the sector

Polymorphisms in DNA-Repair Genes in a Cohort of Prostate Cancer Patients from Different Areas in Spain: Heterogeneity between Populations as a Confounding Factor in Association Studies.

BACKGROUND Differences in the distribution of genotypes between individuals of the same ethnicity are an important confounder factor commonly undervalued in typical association studies conducted in radiogenomics. OBJECTIVE To evaluate the genotypic distribution of SNPs in a wide set of Spanish prostate cancer patients for determine the homogeneity of the population and to disclose potential bias. DESIGN SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS A total of 601 prostate cancer patients from Andalusia, Basque Country, Canary and Catalonia were genotyped for 10 SNPs located in 6 different genes associated to DNA repair: XRCC1 (rs25487, rs25489, rs1799782), ERCC2 (rs13181), ERCC1 (rs11615), LIG4 (rs1805388, rs1805386), ATM (rs17503908, rs1800057) and P53 (rs1042522). The SNP genotyping was made in a Biotrove OpenArray® NT Cycler. OUTCOME MEASUREMENTS AND STATISTICAL ANALYSIS Comparisons of genotypic and allelic frequencies among populations, as well as haplotype analyses were determined using the web-based environment SNPator. Principal component analysis was made using the SnpMatrix and XSnpMatrix classes and methods implemented as an R package. Non-supervised hierarchical cluster of SNP was made using MultiExperiment Viewer. RESULTS AND LIMITATIONS We observed that genotype distribution of 4 out 10 SNPs was statistically different among the studied populations, showing the greatest differences between Andalusia and Catalonia. These observations were confirmed in cluster analysis, principal component analysis and in the differential distribution of haplotypes among the populations. Because tumor characteristics have not been taken into account, it is possible that some polymorphisms may influence tumor characteristics in the same way that it may pose a risk factor for other disease characteristics. CONCLUSION Differences in distribution of genotypes within different populations of the same ethnicity could be an important confounding factor responsible for the lack of validation of SNPs associated with radiation-induced toxicity, especially when extensive meta-analysis with subjects from different countries are carried out.