An Initial Study of Ethnic Differences in Clinical Characteristics of Neuromyelitis Optica Patients in British Columbia Canada (P6.154)
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Objective: To complete an initial study the clinical characteristics of the unique Neuromyelitis Optica patient population of British Columbia Canada. Background: Neuromyelitis Optica (NMO) is an antibody-mediated astrocytopathy where disease course has been reported to vary with ethnicity (Kitley et al., Brain 2012). There is the possibility that environmental factors may explain these differences. The NMO patient population in British Columbia enables comparisons that could conceivably reduce the importance of environmental confounders. Design/Methods: Retrospective chart review of patients with either NMO according to 2006 criteria and NMOSD followed at the University of British Columbia NMO Clinic. For each patient, we collected: gender, ethnicity, current age, birth year, Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS) score, antibody status, onset year, onset age, onset attack-type (optic neuritis (ON), transverse myelitis (TM), both, or other) and visual acuity. Serum samples were tested for NMO-IgG using an AQP4 cell-based assay (Sendai University, Japan), an ELISA assay (Mitogen Laboratory, Alberta, Canada), and an immunofluorescence assay (UBC). For the purposes of analysis, patients were placed into one of three ethnic groupings: Caucasian, Asian and other. Results: 84 patients with NMO, NMOSD were largely non-Caucasian (54[percnt]Asian, South Asian, other) and female (73[percnt]). Optic neuritis was more common initial manifestation in non-Caucasian patients. Caucasian patients had a higher relapse rate than non-Caucasian. Initial attack with transverse myelitis was associated with a higher relapse rate. Conclusion: Data from the NMO patient population in BC supports the notion that ethnicity is associated with differences in NMO disease course characteristics including initial attack type and relapse rate. Genetic differences between ethnicities, rather than environmental factors, may account for variations in NMO clinical course by ethnicity observed in other studies.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.003 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".