OBJECTIVE: This study evaluated the associations of plasma carotenoid, retinol, tocopherol, and vitamin C concentrations and risk of breast cancer.
DESIGN: In a nested case-control study within the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition cohort, 1502 female incident breast cancer cases were included, with an oversampling of premenopausal (n = 582) and estrogen receptor-negative (ER-) cases (n = 462). Controls (n = 1502) were individually matched to cases by using incidence density sampling. Prediagnostic samples were analyzed for α-carotene, β-carotene, lycopene, lutein, zeaxanthin, β-cryptoxanthin, retinol, α-tocopherol, γ-tocopherol, and vitamin C. Breast cancer risk was computed according to hormone receptor status and age at diagnosis (proxy for menopausal status) by using conditional logistic regression and was further stratified by smoking status, alcohol consumption, and body mass index (BMI). All statistical tests were 2-sided.
RESULTS: In quintile 5 compared with quintile 1, α-carotene (OR: 0.61; 95% CI: 0.39, 0.98) and β-carotene (OR: 0.41; 95% CI: 0.26, 0.65) were inversely associated with risk of ER- breast tumors. The other analytes were not statistically associated with ER- breast cancer. For estrogen receptor-positive (ER+) tumors, no statistically significant associations were found. The test for heterogeneity between ER- and ER+ tumors was statistically significant only for β-carotene (P-heterogeneity = 0.03). A higher risk of breast cancer was found for retinol in relation to ER-/progesterone receptor-negative tumors (OR: 2.37; 95% CI: 1.20, 4.67; P-heterogeneity with ER+/progesterone receptor positive = 0.06). We observed no statistically significant interaction between smoking, alcohol, or BMI and all investigated plasma analytes (based on tertile distribution).
CONCLUSION: Our results indicate that higher concentrations of plasma β-carotene and α-carotene are associated with lower breast cancer risk of ER- tumors.
METHODS: This cross-sectional study in a tertiary hospital in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia involved parents of children with asthma. Parents of children without asthma were the control group. Eleven validated video clips showing wheeze, stridor, transmitted noises, snoring or normal breathing were shown to the parents. Parents were asked, in English or Malay, "What do you call the sound this child is making?" and "Where do you think the sound is coming from?"
RESULTS: Two hundred parents participated in this study: 100 had children with asthma while 100 did not. Most (71.5 %) answered in Malay. Only 38.5 % of parents correctly labelled wheeze. Parents were significantly better at locating than labelling wheeze (OR 2.4, 95 % CI 1.64-3.73). Parents with asthmatic children were not better at labelling wheeze than those without asthma (OR1.04, 95 % CI 0.59-1.84). Answering in English (OR 3.4, 95 % CI 1.69-7.14) and having older children with asthma (OR 9.09, 95 % CI 3.13-26.32) were associated with correct labelling of wheeze. Other sounds were mislabelled as wheeze by 16.5 % of respondents.
CONCLUSION: Parental labelling of wheeze was inaccurate especially in the Malay language. Parents were better at identifying the origin of wheeze rather than labelling it. Physicians should be wary about parental reporting of wheeze as it may be inaccurate.
METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted in Hospital Universiti Sains Malaysia, Kelantan from November 2013 till May 2016 among Type 2 DM patients (DM with no DR and DM with NPDR). The patients were evaluated for anterior ocular segment biometry [central corneal thickness (CCT), anterior chamber width (ACW), angle opening distance (AOD) and anterior chamber angle (ACA)] by using Anterior Segment Optical Coherence Tomography (AS-OCT). Three ml venous blood was taken for the measurement of HbA1c.
RESULTS: A total of 150 patients were included in this study (DM with no DR: 50 patients, DM with NPDR: 50 patients, non DM: 50 patients as a control group). The mean CCT and ACW showed significant difference among the three groups (p < 0.001 and p = 0.015 respectively). Based on post hoc result, there were significant mean difference of CCT between non DM and DM with NPDR (mean difference 36.14 μm, p < 0.001) and also between non DM and DM with no DR (mean difference 31.48 μm, p = 0.003). The ACW was significantly narrower in DM with NPDR (11.39 mm SD 0.62) compared to DM with no DR (11.76 mm SD 0.53) (p = 0.012). There were no significant correlation between HbA1c and all the anterior ocular segment biometry.
CONCLUSION: Diabetic patients have significantly thicker CCT regardless of retinopathy status whereas ACW was significantly narrower in DM with NPDR group compared to DM with no DR. There was no significant correlations between HbA1c and all anterior ocular segment biometry in diabetic patients regardless of DR status.
METHODS: Sixty-one participants were recruited into a vapers group and a control group. The vapers group was instructed to smoke for 5 minutes, and their nasal resistance was measured pre-procedure and at 1 and 5 minutes post-procedure. The results were compared between both groups.
RESULTS: Repeated measures analysis of variance demonstrated that vaping has no statistically significant effect on total nasal airway resistance.
CONCLUSION: Although the differences between both groups were not statistically significant overall, the vapers group showed a reduction in nasal airway resistance in the short term.
METHODS: A case-control study was done on 42 keratoconus cases, 127 family member controls, and 96 normal controls.
RESULTS: Three gene variants, p.A182A, p.P237P, and p.R217H showed significant associations with keratoconus (P < 0.05). While p.A182A and p.P227P were more prevalent than in the family and normal controls (OR 3.14-4.05), the reverse was observed with p.R217H (OR 0.086-1.59). With Haploview analysis, p.A182A and p.P237P were shown to be in linkage disequilibrium (LD) (LOD (logarithm of the odds score) score of 2.0, r2 of 0.957, and 95% confidence interval (CI) of 0.96-1.00).
CONCLUSION: The study results suggest that the p.A182A and p.P237P variants could have contributed to the development of keratoconus in some Malaysians and that these two variants are likely to be co-inherited. In contrast, the p.R217H variant appeared to confer some protection against the development of keratoconus.
METHODS: We evaluated 88 breast cancer risk variants that were identified previously by GWAS in 11,760 cases and 11,612 controls of Asian ancestry. SNPs confirmed to be associated with breast cancer risk in Asian women were used to construct a polygenic risk score (PRS). The relative and absolute risks of breast cancer by the PRS percentiles were estimated based on the PRS distribution, and were used to stratify women into different levels of breast cancer risk.
RESULTS: We confirmed significant associations with breast cancer risk for SNPs in 44 of the 78 previously reported loci at P
METHOD: We performed a fine-scale mapping study of a 700 kb region including 441 genotyped and more than 1300 imputed genetic variants in 48,155 cases and 43,612 controls of European descent, 6269 cases and 6624 controls of East Asian descent and 1116 cases and 932 controls of African descent in the Breast Cancer Association Consortium (BCAC; http://bcac.ccge.medschl.cam.ac.uk/ ), and in 15,252 BRCA1 mutation carriers in the Consortium of Investigators of Modifiers of BRCA1/2 (CIMBA). Stepwise regression analyses were performed to identify independent association signals. Data from the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements project (ENCODE) and the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) were used for functional annotation.
RESULTS: Analysis of data from European descendants found evidence for four independent association signals at 12p11, represented by rs7297051 (odds ratio (OR) = 1.09, 95 % confidence interval (CI) = 1.06-1.12; P = 3 × 10(-9)), rs805510 (OR = 1.08, 95 % CI = 1.04-1.12, P = 2 × 10(-5)), and rs1871152 (OR = 1.04, 95 % CI = 1.02-1.06; P = 2 × 10(-4)) identified in the general populations, and rs113824616 (P = 7 × 10(-5)) identified in the meta-analysis of BCAC ER-negative cases and BRCA1 mutation carriers. SNPs rs7297051, rs805510 and rs113824616 were also associated with breast cancer risk at P
METHODS: We conducted a fine-mapping analysis in 55,540 breast cancer cases and 51,168 controls from the Breast Cancer Association Consortium.
RESULTS: Conditional analyses identified two independent association signals among women of European ancestry, represented by rs9790517 [conditional P = 2.51 × 10(-4); OR, 1.04; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.02-1.07] and rs77928427 (P = 1.86 × 10(-4); OR, 1.04; 95% CI, 1.02-1.07). Functional annotation using data from the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE) project revealed two putative functional variants, rs62331150 and rs73838678 in linkage disequilibrium (LD) with rs9790517 (r(2) ≥ 0.90) residing in the active promoter or enhancer, respectively, of the nearest gene, TET2. Both variants are located in DNase I hypersensitivity and transcription factor-binding sites. Using data from both The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and Molecular Taxonomy of Breast Cancer International Consortium (METABRIC), we showed that rs62331150 was associated with level of expression of TET2 in breast normal and tumor tissue.
CONCLUSION: Our study identified two independent association signals at 4q24 in relation to breast cancer risk and suggested that observed association in this locus may be mediated through the regulation of TET2.
IMPACT: Fine-mapping study with large sample size warranted for identification of independent loci for breast cancer risk.
METHODS: A comprehensive systematic search was carried out in PubMed/MEDLINE, SCOPUS, Web of Science, and EMBASE databases for (nested) case-control studies that reported the levels of IGF-1 and IGFBP in GC cases and healthy controls, from inception until October 2020. Weighted mean difference (WMD) was calculated for estimating combined effect size. Subgroup analysis was performed to identify the source of heterogeneity among studies.
RESULTS: We found eight and five eligible studies (with 1541 participants) which provided data for IGF-1 and IGFBP, respectively. All studies on IGFBP reported the IGFBP-3 isoform. The pooled results indicate that GC patients had significantly lower serum IGF-1 [WMD = -26.21 ng/mL (95% CI, -45.58 to -6.85; P = .008)] and IGFBP-3 [WMD = -0.41 ng/mL (95% CI, -0.80 to -0.01; P = .04; I2 = 89.9%; P control subjects.