Cancer Epidemiology Unit

About: Cancer Epidemiology Unit is a based out in . It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Cancer. The organization has 669 authors who have published 1725 publications receiving 93979 citations.

Fruit and vegetable intake and the risk of stomach and oesophagus adenocarcinoma in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC-EURGAST).

Abstract: It is considered that fruit and vegetable (FV 95% CI 0.35-1.22 per 100 g increase) and onion and garlic intake (calibrated HR 0.70; 95% CI 0.38-1.29 per 10 g increase). No evidence of association between fresh fruit intake and GC risk was observed. We found a negative but non significant association between citrus fruit intake and the cardia site (calibrated HR 0.77; 95% CI 0.47-1.22 per 100 g increase) while no association was observed with the non-cardia site. Regarding ACO, we found a non significant negative association for vegetable intake and for citrus intake (calibrated HRs 0.72; 95% CI 0.32-1.64 and 0.77; 95% CI 0.46-1.28 per 100 and 50 g increase, respectively). It seems that Hp infection does not modify the effect of F&V intake. Our study supports a possible protective role of vegetable intake in the intestinal type of GC and the ACO. Citrus fruit consumption may have a role in the protection against cardia GC and ACO.

Cancer risk in patients with diabetes mellitus.

Abstract: Cancer incidence was ascertained in a population-based cohort of 51,008 patients in Uppsala, Sweden, who were given a discharge diagnosis of diabetes mellitus during 1965–83. Complete follow-up through 1984 with exclusion of the first year of observation showed that the observed number of cancers in females (1,294) was eight percent higher than expected (relative risk [RR]=1.1, 95 percent confidence interval =11.0–1.1), whereas in males the observed number (1,123) was close to the expected (RR=1.0, 0.9–1.1). Significantly increased risks of pancreatic (RR=1.4, 1.2–1.7), primary liver (RR=1.5, 1.2–1.7), and endometrial (RR=1.5, 1.2–1.8) cancers and a lower than expected number of prostatic cancers (RR=0.7, 0.7–09) were found in this cohort of diabetic patients. The excess risk of pancreatic cancer was similar in females and males and evident both during one through four years (RR=1.7, 1.4–2.1) and five through nine years (RR=1.3, 0.9−1.7) of follow-up, but not thereafter. A similar pattern was found for primary liver cancer, but the RRs were generally higher in males than in females.

Epidemiological evidence for an infective basis in childhood leukaemia

Abstract: An infective basis for childhood leukaemia is not a new suspicion (Kellett, 1937). The failure of microbiologists to identify any specific agent and of epidemiologists to demonstrate marked space-time clustering of the disease (Smith, 1982) have been discouraging, but neither is incompatible with an infectious origin. In several vertebrate species, the specific agents responsible for leukaemia belong to a class that is notoriously difficult to isolate. Also, many infectious illnesses do not cluster because they are uncommon responses to the relevant infection. Thus, the agent responsible for infectious mononucleosis is mainly spread not by those with the illness but by that very much larger number of infected individuals who are clinically unaffected (or only trivially so). Such infections can be considered as 'mainly immunising': they can be seen as representing the most probable broad category to which the infection underlying childhood leukaemia belongs.

Epidemiology of HPV 16 and Cervical Cancer in Finland and the Potential Impact of Vaccination: Mathematical Modelling Analyses

Abstract: Background Candidate human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines have demonstrated almost 90%-100% efficacy in preventing persistent, type-specific HPV infection over 18 mo in clinical trials. If these vaccines go on to demonstrate prevention of precancerous lesions in phase III clinical trials, they will be licensed for public use in the near future. How these vaccines will be used in countries with national cervical cancer screening programmes is an important question. Methods and Findings We developed a transmission model of HPV 16 infection and progression to cervical cancer and calibrated it to Finnish HPV 16 seroprevalence over time. The model was used to estimate the transmission probability of the virus, to look at the effect of changes in patterns of sexual behaviour and smoking on age-specific trends in cancer incidence, and to explore the impact of HPV 16 vaccination. We estimated a high per-partnership transmission probability of HPV 16, of 0.6. The modelling analyses showed that changes in sexual behaviour and smoking accounted, in part, for the increase seen in cervical cancer incidence in 35- to 39-y-old women from 1990 to 1999. At both low (10% in opportunistic immunisation) and high (90% in a national immunisation programme) coverage of the adolescent population, vaccinating women and men had little benefit over vaccinating women alone. We estimate that vaccinating 90% of young women before sexual debut has the potential to decrease HPV type-specific (e.g., type 16) cervical cancer incidence by 91%. If older women are more likely to have persistent infections and progress to cancer, then vaccination with a duration of protection of less than 15 y could result in an older susceptible cohort and no decrease in cancer incidence. While vaccination has the potential to significantly reduce type-specific cancer incidence, its combination with screening further improves cancer prevention. Conclusions HPV vaccination has the potential to significantly decrease HPV type-specific cervical cancer incidence. High vaccine coverage of women alone, sustained over many decades, with a long duration of vaccine-conferred protection, would have the greatest impact on type-specific cancer incidence. This level of coverage could be achieved through national coordinated programmes, with surveillance to detect cancers caused by nonvaccine oncogenic HPV types.