Cancer prevention

Oral health is a vital indicator of well-being that is influenced by various habits and lifestyles of individuals. Oral diseases are the bottleneck in the effective control of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) due to chronic in nature and reciprocal relationship as sharing the common risk factors and habits such as sugar, tobacco, and alcohol consumption that increase the risk of developing various inevitable diseases. However, there is a lack of literature highlighting the relationship between risk factors for oral diseases and general health among individuals...

BACKGROUND: Preconception health provides an opportunity to examine a woman's health status and address modifiable risk factors that can impact both a woman's and her child's health once pregnant. In this review, we aimed to investigate the preconception risk factors and interventions of early pregnancy and its impact on adverse maternal, perinatal and child health outcomes. METHODS: We conducted a scoping review following the PRISMA-ScR guidelines to include relevant literature identified from electronic databases...

BACKGROUND: Previous studies have demonstrated that incorporating a polygenic risk score (PRS) to existing risk prediction models for breast cancer improves model fit, but to determine its clinical utility the impact on risk categorisation needs to be established. We add a PRS to two well-established models and quantify the difference in classification using the net reclassification improvement (NRI). METHODS: We analysed data from 126,490 post-menopausal women of "White British" ancestry, aged 40-69 years at baseline from the UK Biobank prospective cohort...

BACKGROUND: Limited studies have explored the impact of the Omicron variant on SARS-CoV-2 infection, hospitalization, and associated factors among people living with HIV, particularly in China. The adjustment of preventive policies since December 2022 in China presents an opportunity to evaluate the real-world factors influencing SARS-CoV-2 infection and related hospitalization among people living with HIV. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to investigate SARS-CoV-2 infection, hospitalization rates, and associated factors among people living with HIV following the adjustment of preventive policies from December 2022 to February 2023 in southeastern China...

Outbreaks of viral diseases seriously jeopardize people's health and cause huge economic losses. At the same time, virology provides a new perspective for biology, molecular biology and cancer research, and it is important to study the discovered viruses with potential applications. Therefore, the development of immediate and rapid viral detection methods for the prevention and treatment of viral diseases as well as the study of viruses has attracted extensive attention from scientists. With the continuous progress of science and technology, especially in the field of bioanalysis, a series of new detection techniques have been applied to the on-site rapid detection of viruses, which has become a powerful approach for human beings to fight against viruses...

BACKGROUND: Aortoesophageal fistula (AEF) is a rare but potentially life-threatening condition. The best treatment for the AEF due to esophageal carcinoma is still unresolved. Here, we report a rare case of AEF caused by esophageal cancer, that was successfully treated with emergency thoracic endovascular aortic repair (TEVAR), followed by esophagectomy and gastric tube reconstruction. CASE PRESENTATION: A 64-year-old man presented with loss of consciousness and hypotension during chemoradiotherapy for advanced esophageal cancer...

Chronic, non-communicable diseases present a major barrier to living a long and healthy life. In many cases, early diagnosis can facilitate prevention, monitoring, and treatment efforts, improving patient outcomes. There is therefore a critical need to make screening techniques as accessible, unintimidating, and cost-effective as possible. The association between ocular biomarkers and systemic health and disease (oculomics) presents an attractive opportunity for detection of systemic diseases, as ophthalmic techniques are often relatively low-cost, fast, and non-invasive...

When cells proliferate, stress on DNA replication or exposure to endogenous or external insults frequently results in DNA damage. DNA-Damage Response (DDR) networks are complex signaling pathways used by multicellular organisms to prevent DNA damage. Depending on the type of broken DNA, the various pathways, Base-Excision Repair (BER), Nucleotide Excision Repair (NER), Mismatch Repair (MMR), Homologous Recombination (HR), Non-Homologous End-Joining (NHEJ), Interstrand Crosslink (ICL) repair, and other direct repair pathways, can be activated separately or in combination to repair DNA damage...

Trace elements are essential micronutrients for the human body. Their roles are indispensable, as they are involved in a wide range of vital biological processes. In this study, we aimed to evaluate alterations in trace elements in the blood and bone marrow serum of patients with newly diagnosed multiple myeloma (NMM). The levels of zinc (Zn), copper (Cu), iron (Fe), manganese (Mn), magnesium (Mg), selenium (Se), arsenic (As), boron (B), nickel (Ni), silicon (Si) and chromium (Cr) were analyzed in the venous blood samples of the patient group comprising 70 patients with NMM (41 males and 29 females) and compared to those in the control group comprising 30 individuals (18 males and 12 females)...

In the contemporary era, heightened emphasis on health and safety has emerged as a paramount concern among individuals with food. The concepts of "natural" and "green" have progressively asserted dominance in the food consumption market. Consequently, through continuous exploration and development, an escalating array of natural bioactive ingredients is finding application in both nutrition delivery and the broader food industry. Chlorogenic acid (CGA), a polyphenolic compound widely distributed in various plants in nature, has garnered significant attention...

The purpose of preoperative biliary drainage (PBD) is to reduce complications during the perioperative period. The extrahepatic bile duct comprises distal and hilar bile ducts and assessing the need for PBD must be considered separately for each duct, as surgical procedures and morbidities vary. The representative disease-causing distal bile duct obstruction is pancreatic cancer. A randomized controlled trial has revealed that PBD carries the risk of recurrent cholangitis and pancreatitis before surgery, thus eliminating the need for PBD when early surgery is feasible...

PURPOSE: Evidence of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on cancer prevention and control is growing, but little is known about patient-level factors associated with delayed care. We analyzed data from a survey focused on Iowan cancer patients' COVID-19 experiences in the early part of the pandemic. METHODS: Participants were recruited from the University of Iowa Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center's Patients Enhancing Research Collaborations at Holden (PERCH) program...

OBJECTIVES: Male infertility is a major public health issue due to increased prevalence, so there is an urgent need for a therapeutic solution. The search for a natural dietary substance that could modulate redox balance and inflammation and protect testicular function is in demand. Virgin Coconut Oil (VCO) has found use in the treatment of diabetes, and cancer owing to the presence of polyphenols. However, there is a dearth of information on its effect on testicular toxicity. The present study investigated VCO as a possible treatment for testicular toxicity in the Sodium Benzoate (SB) model of male infertility by evaluating the oxidative and inflammatory status, circulating hormonal levels, and key sperm indices...

BACKGROUND: Estimating the global influenza burden in terms of hospitalization and death is important for optimizing prevention policies. Identifying risk factors for mortality allows for the design of strategies tailored to groups at the highest risk. This study aims to (a) describe the clinical characteristics of hospitalizations with a diagnosis of influenza over five flu seasons (2016-2017 to 2020-2021), (b) assess the associated morbidity (hospitalization rates and ICU admissions rate), mortality and cost of influenza hospitalizations in different age groups and (c) analyze the risk factors for mortality...

BACKGROUND: Liver cancer has a high incidence and mortality rate worldwide, and there is an urgent need to identify new therapeutic strategies and predictive targets to improve the clinical outcomes of advanced liver cancer. Ferroptosis holds promise as a novel strategy for cancer therapy. Epigenetic dysregulation is a hallmark of cancer, and noncoding RNAs are tightly involved in cell fate determination. Therefore, we aimed to identify a novel ferroptosis regulator from aberrantly expressed microRNAs that may serve as a novel biomarker and therapeutic target for liver cancer...

Despite advances in surgical treatment techniques and chemotherapy-including anti-angiogenic and immune poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase inhibitors, the 5-year survival rate in ovarian cancer (OC) remains low. The reasons for this are the diagnosis of cancer in advanced clinical stages, chemoresistance and cancer recurrence. New therapeutic approaches are being developed, including the search for new biomarkers that are also targets for targeted therapy. The present review describes new molecular markers with relevance to targeted therapy, which to date have been studied only in experimental research...

The gut microbiota is associated with GC; however, the causal association between the gut microbiota and GC remains to be determined. The aim of the present study was to investigate the causal association between gut microbiota and gastric cancer (GC) from the perspective of Mendelian randomization (MR). The present study performed MR analysis using summary statistics from a genome-wide association study of the gut microbiome and GC. Inverse-variance weighted, MR-Egger and weighted median methods were used to investigate the causal relationship between gut microbiota and GC...

Immune checkpoint blockade therapy provides a new strategy for tumor treatment; however, the insufficient infiltration of cytotoxic T cells and immunosuppression in tumor microenvironment lead to unsatisfied effects. Herein, we reported a lipid/PLGA nanocomplex (RDCM) co-loaded with the photosensitizer Ce6 and the indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO) inhibitor 1MT to improve immunotherapy of colon cancer. Arginine-glycine-aspartic acid (RGD) as the targeting moiety was conjugated on 1,2-distearoyl-snglycero-3-phosphoethanolamine lipid via polyethylene glycol (PEG), and programmed cell death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) peptide inhibitor DPPA (sequence: CPLGVRGK-GGG-d(NYSKPTDRQYHF)) was immobilized on the terminal group of PEG via matrix metalloproteinase 2 sensitive peptide linker...

Immunotherapy has renovated the field of oncology. Usually, cancer is treated by surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation. Immunotherapy is a promising treatment that harnesses the patient's own immune system to target cancer. Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) have proven to be a promising treatment avenue for managing cancer; however, their use had been associated with a unique spectrum of adverse side effects called immune-related adverse events (irAEs). As ICIs become increasingly relevant in cancer management, it is crucial to address these irAEs affecting various systems in the body, including the skin, liver, gastrointestinal tract, endocrine system, and the eye...

The diagnostics of colorectal cancer (CRC) and precancerous lesions in the colon is one of the most urgent matters to be considered for the modern protocols of complex examination, recommended for use from the age of 45 years, and including both instrumental and laboratory methods of research: Colonoscopy, CT colonography, flexible sigmoidoscopy, fecal occult blood test, fecal immunohistochemistry test and stool DNA test Nevertheless, the removal of those precancerous lesions does not solve the issue, and, apart from the regular endoscopic monitoring of patients who are at a high risk of developing CRC, the pharmacological treatment of certain key pathogenic mechanisms leading to the development of CRC is required...