Infectious Agents and Cancer最新文献

Background: Women in Africa are experiencing a rising burden of endometrial cancer. Research and investment to improve treatment and outcomes are critically needed. We systematically reviewed and characterized endometrial cancer-related research within a clinically relevant context to help organize and assess existing endometrial cancer research in Africa.

Methods: According to PRISMA guidelines, we searched online databases for published endometrial cancer articles from African countries from January 1, 2011, to July 20, 2021. Based on our inclusion and exclusion criteria, independent reviewers documented the study design, country/region, human development index, focus of research, type of interventions performed, and histologic and molecular type to illustrate the breadth of research coverage in each region.

Results: A total of 18 research articles were included. With an average Human Development Index (HDI) in Africa of 0.536, the average HDI of the represented countries in this study was 0.709. The majority (88.9%) of prospective endometrial cancer research articles in Africa were from North Africa, with Egypt encompassing 83.3% of the papers. Most of these studies focused on endometrial cancer diagnosis. Research on the treatment of endometrial cancer is still emerging (33% of papers). Of all included articles, only 11.1% represented Sub-Saharan Africa, where the majority population of black Africans reside.

Conclusions: Endometrial cancer research in Africa is extremely limited, with the majority being concentrated in African countries with higher HDIs. As the incidence of endometrial cancer rises in Sub-Saharan Africa, there is a pressing need for more prospective clinical research to tackle the growing disease burden and improve outcomes.

Background: Cervical cancer is one of the most common cancers in women. Evidences show that, routine immunization of girls at age 14 year and immunization of girls at age 9 year through a 5 years extended interval between doses are the most efficient to control the disease. Despite this, there is very little information on parents' willingness to accept the human papilloma virus vaccine. Therefore, assessing willingness to accept human papilloma virus vaccination and its associated factors among parents with eligible daughter will help to designing, implementing and monitoring effectiveness of HPV vaccine immunization program.

Methods: A community-based cross-sectional study was conducted among 386 parents with eligible daughters from 8July-6August, 2022. The multistage sampling technique was used. Data was collected using an interviewer-administered questionnaire. Responses were coded and entered into the computer using EPI data version 4.606 statistical packages, and SPSS version 23 was used for data analysis. Frequencies, percentages and means were as to describe the study variables in relation to the participants. Bivariable and multivariable logistic regression were employed. The statistical significance was set at a p-value of < 0.05 with its respected odds ratio.

Results: A total of 386 study participants were included in the study. Among participants, 80.3% (95% CI: 76.3, 84) were willing to vaccinate their daughters for HPV vaccination. The parents' willingness was affected by the male parents ([AOR = 3.5; 95% CI (1.673-7.371)], fear of side effects [AOR = 0.385; 95% CI (0.206-0.718)], and with poor awareness on the HPV vaccine [AOR = 0.483; 95% CI (0.259- 0.900)].

Conclusion: The study has shown that willingness to accept the HPV vaccine is about 80% and significantly affected with parental sex, information on the HPV vaccine, and fear of side effects. As such, it may be helpful for the health care providers and the health care policy makers to emphasize on providing easily understandable information using mass media and social campaign. In addition giving trainings more targeted to female parents might be important.

The era of precision medicine requires the achievement of accurate risk assessment. Polygenic risk scores (PRSs) have strong potential for increasing the benefits of nationwide cancer screening programs. The current pool of evidence on the role of a PRS as a risk stratification model in actual practice and implementation is limited. To better understand the impact of possible method-induced variance, we constructed and validated two PRSs for cervical cancer (CC) using the Estonian Biobank female population (691 CC cases and 13,820 controls) and evaluated their utility in predicting incident cervical neoplasia (CIN), cancer, and human papillomavirus (HPV) infection using two methods (LDPred and BayesRR-RC). This study demonstrated that two genetic risk scores were significantly associated with CIN, CC, and HPV infection incidence. Independent of the method, we demonstrated that women with elevated PRS values reached the observed cumulative risk levels of CIN or CC much earlier. Our results indicated that the PRS-based discrimination rules could differ substantially when the PRSs contain similar predictive information. In summary, our analysis indicated that PRSs represent a personalized genetic component that could be an additional tool for cervical cancer risk stratification, and earlier detection of abnormalities provides invaluable information for those at high risk.

Background: Cervical cancer is preventable through screening and vaccination against high-risk human papillomavirus (hr-HPV). For a screening program to be successful it is vital that the clinical management and follow-up regime of patients with abnormal screening results is well developed and that the attendance rate for follow-up is high. The aim of the study was to analyze how effective conization with recommended follow-up was in preventing subsequent cervical cancer, and to evaluate how clinical follow-up recommendations are obeyed in the region of Skåne, Sweden.

Methods: All women (n = 8835) who had undergone conization in the region of Skåne, Sweden, between the years of 2015 and 2021 were identified. Individuals with confirmed cervical cancer in the conization material were referred for additional treatment (n = 114), leaving 8721 included in the follow-up. Adherence to follow-up and cytological, histopathological and HPV status at follow-up were collected at eight, 12 and 24 months post-conization. The total follow-up time was from January 1, 2015, to January 30, 2023.

Results: Within 12 months post-conization, 90% of the patients conducted a cytological cervical sample. The rates of a negative test of cure (HPV negative and normal cytology) were 69.7%, 76.3% and 84.4% at eight, 12 and 24 months post-conization respectively. The clearance of HPV was 79.6%, 80.8% and 87.8% at eight, 12 and 24 months post-conization respectively. Out of 5613 patients with a negative test of cure within one year after conization, no cervical cancer was found during follow-up and 11 (0.2%) women developed high-grade intraepithelial lesions/adenocarcinoma in situ (HSIL/AIS) with an average time from conization to new diagnosis of 42 months. The mean follow-up time was 32.1 months.

Conclusions: The clearance rate of hr-HPV post cervical conization due to dysplasia appears to be high within eight months. With a negative test of cure post cervical conization, the risk of cervical cancer within the following three years seems to be extremely low and the risk of developing HSIL/AIS was lower than the incidence of HSIL/AIS in the general screening population.

Background: Despite the introduction of combined antiretroviral therapy, the clinical outcomes of HIV-associated Burkitt lymphoma (BL) remain poor.

Methods: To evaluate the clinical characteristics, prognostic factors, and outcomes of HIV-associated BL, we conducted a retrospective analysis of patients from multiple centers in China.

Results: The study included 41 patients from 8 medical centers. Among the included population, male patients accounted for 87.8%, with 75.6% in advanced stages. Notably, 46.3% of cases involved bone marrow, while 19.5% involved the central nervous system (CNS). The most commonly used chemotherapy regimen was DA-EPOCH ± R, accounting for 53.6% of cases. The overall response rates for patients receiving DA-EPOCH ± R and R-Hyper-CVAD were 59% and 58.2%, respectively. Interestingly, patients receiving regimens containing rituximab had similar complete remission rates (25% vs. 23.5%) and overall survival time (45.69 ± 11.58 vs. 47.79 ± 11.72 months, P = 0.907) compared to those without rituximab, but differed in progression rates (33.3% vs. 47.1%). For the entire cohort, the 1-year progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) rates were 52% and 67%, respectively. CNS involvement was independent risk factors for survival, with 1-year PFS and OS rates of 0% and 38% for patients with CNS involvement, and PFS and OS rates of 66% and 75% for patients without CNS involvement.

Conclusions: HIV-associated BL patients in China have poor prognosis and show limited response to current treatment regimens. The absence of CNS involvement significantly improves clinical outcomes. The use of rituximab is not significantly associated with improved outcomes but can reduce disease progression.

Background: The role of high-risk human papillomaviruses (hr-HPVs) in cervical cancer (CC) pathogenesis has long been established. Knowledge about the involvement of hr-HPVs in the etiology of nasopharyngeal cancers (NPC) was not well appreciated until the early 2000s when a clear link began to emerge. However, it is not clear whether HPV oncogenesis in the different epithelial cancers is associated with L1 gene and long-control region (LCR) sequences variation. This study aimed to investigate the HPV18 L1 gene and LCR sequences variation in cervical and nasopharyngeal biopsies, and assessed E6 and E7 genes expression level in both cancers.

Method: Four-hundred and three (403) formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissues originating from nasopharyngeal (NPC) (279) and cervical (CC) (124) sites were collected from a pathology laboratory, Pathologist Without Borders, Accra, Ghana. Haematoxylin and eosin staining was carried out to confirm the presence of cancer on prepared biopsy sections. DNA was extracted from the confirmed cancer biopsies, followed by PCR using MY09/GP5+ /6+ primers to detect the presence of HPV and specific primers for the amplification of L1 gene and LCR. Sanger sequencing was carried out to determine HPV genotypes, and L1 and LCR sequences variant of HPV18s in CC and NPC biopsies. The HPV18 E6/E7 mRNA expression pattern in both cancers was determined using RT-qPCR.

Results: Most of the NPC (45%) and CC (55%) biopsies were HPV18 positive. Comparison of HPV18 L1 sequences obtained from cervical and nasopharyngeal cancer tissues, the L1 sequences from the NPC were highly dissimilar with a 59-100% variation among themselves, and in relation to the reference strains. However, the L1 sequences from the CC were more similar with a 91.0-100% variation among the amplified sequences. Also, the LCR sequences from CC were quite different relative to that of NPC. Results for the differential expression of E6/E7 in the two cancers showed a higher fold change in E6 expression in the CC tissues than the NPC tissues while a reverse expression pattern was found for E7 gene.

Conclusion: The current study reports for the first-time variations in HPV18 L1 and LCR sequences, and differential expression of E6/E7 genes in NPC compared to CC, suggesting a possible adaptation mechanism of the virus at different cancer sites.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of Chlamydia trachomatis (CT) and Mycoplasma genitalium (MG) among HPV-positive women undergoing colposcopy at the Second Xiangya Hospital of Central South University, Hunan, China. Additionally, we aimed to assess the impact of C. trachomatis or M. genitalium co-infection with HPV on the severity of cervical lesions.

Methods: We collected HPV data, cervical cytology results, and demographic information from 439 women attending colposcopy. Cervical swabs were obtained for simultaneous amplification testing (SAT) of C. trachomatis and M. genitalium. Multivariate logistic regression analyses were performed to examine the association between sexually transmitted pathogens and cervical lesions.

Results: Among the participants, C. trachomatis was detected in 17 (3.87%) individuals, and M. genitalium in 16 (3.64%) individuals. There was no co-infection of C. trachomatis and M. genitalium. The highest prevalence of M. genitalium was observed in women aged 19-30 years (10.20%; 95% CI, 1.41-18.99%), with a subsequent decline in prevalence with increasing age (Ptrend = 0.014). The most common HPV subtype in our study was HPV52 (30.79%), followed by HPV16 (18.62%), HPV58 (16.95%), and HPV53 (10.02%). Infection with HPV16 (OR = 3.43, 95% CI, 2.13-5.53), HPV31 (OR = 3.70, 95% CI, 1.44-9.50), and HPV33 (OR = 3.71, 95% CI, 1.43-9.67) was associated with an increased severity of cervical lesions, while HPV53 infection was not likely to lead to advanced cervical lesions (OR = 0.45, 95% CI, 0.23-0.89). The leukocyte level in vaginal secretions (P = 0.042) and cervical cytology results (P < 0.001) showed associations with the degree of cervical lesions. However, there was no significant association between C. trachomatis or M. genitalium infection and the severity of cervical lesions, nor with their co-infection with HPV16.

Conclusions: There was no correlation between co-infection of Chlamydia trachomatis or Mycoplasma genitalium and the degree of cervical lesions in HPV-positive population in Hunan, China. Our findings emphasized the need to pay more attention to M. genitalium infection among young women. Increased levels of leukocytes in vaginal secretions may be linked to cervical lesions. HPV16, HPV31, and HPV33 in Hunan province, China, may exhibit higher cervical pathogenicity.