1.Assessing the Nutritional Status of Children with Leukemia from Hospitals in Kuala Lumpur
Zalina AZ ; Suzana Shahar ; A Rahman A Jamal ; Noor Aini MY
Malaysian Journal of Nutrition 2009;15(1):45-51
A cross-sectional study was carried out to evaluate the nutritional status of 51 subjects
with leukemia aged 4 to 12 years from the Haematology & Oncology Paediatric Ward,
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Medical Centre (PPUKM) and the Paediatric Institute of Kuala Lumpur. Nutritional status was assessed using anthropometric measurements,
biochemical and haematological parameters. Subjects comprised 32 (62.7%) males and
19 (27.3%) females. Most of the subjects (41.2%) were in the age group of 4 to 6 years.
More than half of the children were Malays (70.6%) followed by Indians (15.7%) and
Chinese (13.7%). The subjects were diagnosed as acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL)
(84.3%) followed by acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) (13.7%) and chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) (2.0%) respectively. Most of the children were in
remission status (54.9%). Underweight (<-2 SD for weight-for-age) was observed in
37.3% of the children while 17.6% of them were stunted (<-2 SD for height-for-age), and
sign(s) of malnutrition (<-2 SD) for mid upper arm circumference (MUAC)-for-age was
observed in 15.7% of the subjects. Approximately 20.0% of the subjects were in the
severe malnutrition category with respect to low serum albumin levels (<3.5g/dl). All
subjects had hemoglobin levels of less than the normal range. While the results indicated
no significant differences in the nutritional status of subjects with leukemia at different
stages of treatment, it was observed that the prevalence of malnutrition was higher in
children with newly diagnosed leukemia. Thus, the nutritional status of children with
leukemia should be monitored closely as there is a likelihood of deterioration owing to the disease.
2.Ginger Extract (Zingiber officinale Roscoe) Triggers Apoptosis in Hepatocarcinogenesis Induced Rats
Yasmin Anum MY ; Shahriza ZA ; Looi ML ; Shafina Hanim MH ; Harlianshah H ; Noor Aini AH ; Suzana M ; Wan Zurinah WN
Medicine and Health 2008;3(2):263-274
Ginger extract has been reported previously by our group to exhibit anticancer and antioxidant effects by reducing tumour burden and lipid peroxidation respectively in he-patocarcinogenesis induced rats. The current study examined the expression of pro-apoptotic protein caspase-8 and anti-apoptotic protein Bcl-2 in hepatocarcinogenesis treated rats. Thirty normal male Wistar rats were divided into 5 groups based on the diet given: i) control (normal rat chow), ii) olive oil, iii) ginger extract (100mg/kg body weight), iv) choline deficient diet + ethionine, CDE (to induce liver cancer) and v) CDE+ginger extract. Rats were killed at week 8, and liver tissues were excised for immuno-histochemical study to identify pro-apoptotic and anti-apoptotic proteins, caspase-8 and Bcl-2. The observation on H&E staining confirmed the CDE diet induced liver can-cer as indicated by the presence of numerous oval cells. Identification of Bcl-2 expres-sion showed that 91.6% (11/12) of the samples from the CDE group revealed positive staining while treatment with ginger extract however inhibited the expression with only 8.4% (1/12) samples showing positive staining for Bcl-2. As for caspase-8 protein, 41.7% (5/12) of the samples from CDE group showed positive staining, which in-creased to 100% (12/12) with ginger extract treatment. Our findings suggest that gin-ger extract has an anticancer effect by inducing apoptosis in liver cancer cells via up-regulation of the expression of pro-apoptotic protein, caspase-8 and down-regulation of the expression of anti-apoptotic protein Bcl-2.