Bmc Med
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Smoking is the most important individual risk factor for many cancer sites but its association with breast and prostate cancer is not entirely clear. Rate advancement periods (RAPs) may enhance communication of smoking related risk to the general population. Thus, we estimated RAPs for the association of smoking exposure (smoking status, time since smoking cessation, smoking intensity, and duration) with total and site-specific (lung, breast, colorectal, prostate, gastric, head and neck, and pancreatic) cancer incidence and mortality. ⋯ This investigation shows that smoking, even among older adults, considerably advances, and cessation delays, the risk of developing and dying from cancer. These findings may be helpful in more effectively communicating the harmful effects of smoking and the beneficial effect of smoking cessation.
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Epidemiological studies have observed a positive association between an earlier age at sexual development and prostate cancer, but markers of sexual maturation in boys are imprecise and observational estimates are likely to suffer from a degree of uncontrolled confounding. To obtain causal estimates, we examined the role of pubertal development in prostate cancer using genetic polymorphisms associated with Tanner stage in adolescent boys in a Mendelian randomization (MR) approach. ⋯ Older age at sexual maturation is causally linked to a reduced risk of later prostate cancer, especially aggressive disease.
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Despite recent efforts to enforce policies requiring the sharing of data underlying clinical findings, current policies of biomedical journals remain largely heterogeneous. As this heterogeneity does not optimally serve the cause of data sharing, a first step towards better harmonization would be the requirement of a data sharing statement for all clinical studies and not simply for randomized studies. ⋯ Currently, a scientific output only corresponds to a study report published in a medical journal, while in the near future it might consist of all materials described in the manuscript, including all relevant raw data. When such a cultural shift has been achieved, the logical conclusion would be for biomedical journals to require authors to make all data fully available without restriction as a condition for publication.
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Reduction of gametocyte transmission from humans to mosquitoes is a key component of malaria elimination. The study by Gonçalves and colleagues provides valuable new data on how the addition of low-dose primaquine to artemether-lumefantrine affects reduction of gametocytemia and transmission of gametocytes to mosquitoes in asymptomatically Plasmodium falciparum-infected children without G6PD deficiency, and on the degree to which low-dose primaquine affects hemoglobin levels in these children. ⋯ The study highlights both the promise and the potential risk of ACT-primaquine treatment in malaria elimination campaigns. Please see related article: https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12916-016-0581-y .
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Observational Study
Is there continued evidence for an association between abacavir usage and myocardial infarction risk in individuals with HIV? A cohort collaboration.
In March 2008, the D:A:D study published results demonstrating an increased risk of myocardial infarction (MI) for patients on abacavir (ABC). We describe changes to the use of ABC since this date, and investigate changes to the association between ABC and MI with subsequent follow-up. ⋯ Despite a reduction in the channelling of ABC for patients at higher CVD risk since 2008, we continue to observe an association between ABC use and MI risk. Whilst confounding cannot be fully ruled out, this further diminishes channelling bias as an explanation for our findings.