Cancer Screening Trial (cancer + screening_trial)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


The association between leukocyte telomere length and cigarette smoking, dietary and physical variables, and risk of prostate cancer

AGING CELL, Issue 4 2009
Lisa Mirabello
Summary Telomeres consist of nucleotide repeats and a protein complex at chromosome ends that are essential to maintaining chromosomal integrity. Several studies have suggested that subjects with shorter telomeres are at increased risk of bladder and lung cancer. In comparison to normal tissues, telomeres are shorter in high-grade intraepithelial neoplasia and prostate cancer. We examined prostate cancer risk associated with relative telomere length as determined by quantitative PCR on prediagnostic buffy coat DNA isolated from 612 advanced prostate cancer cases and 1049 age-matched, cancer-free controls from the PLCO Cancer Screening Trial. Telomere length was analyzed as both a continuous and a categorical variable with adjustment for potential confounders. Statistically significant inverse correlations between telomere length, age and smoking status were observed in cases and controls. Telomere length was not associated with prostate cancer risk (at the median, OR = 0.85, 95% CI: 0.67, 1.08); associations were similar when telomere length was evaluated as a continuous variable or by quartiles. The relationships between telomere length and inflammation-related factors, diet, exercise, body mass index, and other lifestyle variables were explored since many of these have previously been associated with shorter telomeres. Healthy lifestyle factors (i.e., lower BMI, more exercise, tobacco abstinence, diets high in fruit and vegetables) tended to be associated with greater telomere length. This study found no statistically significant association between leukocyte telomere length and advanced prostate cancer risk. However, correlations of telomere length with healthy lifestyles were noted, suggesting the role of these factors in telomere biology maintenance and potentially impacting overall health status. [source]


Western Australian cigarette smokers have fewer small lung nodules than North Americans on CT screening for lung cancer

JOURNAL OF MEDICAL IMAGING AND RADIATION ONCOLOGY, Issue 4 2009
CP Murray
Summary To determine the prevalence of small lung nodules on low-dose helical computed tomography (CT) in a Western Australian cohort of asymptomatic long-term cigarette smokers and to compare this with a large, similarly derived cohort of North Americans from the Mayo Clinic Lung Cancer Screening Trial. Forty-nine asymptomatic long-term cigarette smokers of minimum age 50 years underwent a low-dose 64-slice helical CT of the lungs. Images were viewed on a soft copy reporting station with thin section axial and coronal images, maximum intensity projection images, and advanced image manipulation tools. The prevalence of all nodules was 39%, significantly lower than the Mayo Clinic cohort prevalence of 51% (P < 0.01, Fisher's exact test), despite the use of more advanced imaging technology and image manipulation designed to increase the sensitivity for nodules. The prevalence of small nodules in asymptomatic long-term cigarette smokers in Western Australia is high, though significantly less than that found in a large study in North America. The authors postulate this is due to the relatively low rates of mycobacterium tuberculosis and soil-derived fungal pulmonary infections in Western Australia, as well as a lower degree of urban air pollution. [source]


HNF1B and JAZF1 genes, diabetes, and prostate cancer risk,

THE PROSTATE, Issue 6 2010
Victoria L. Stevens
Abstract BACKGROUND Epidemiologic studies have shown that men with type II diabetes have a lower risk of prostate cancer than non-diabetic men. Recently, common variants in two genes, HNF1B and JAZF1, were found to be associated with both of these diseases. METHODS We examined whether the relationship between HNF1B and JAZF1 variants and decreased prostate cancer risk may potentially be mediated through diabetes in two large prospective studies, the Cancer Prevention Study II Nutrition Cohort and the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian Cancer Screening Trial. RESULTS Three HNF1B SNPS, rs11649743, rs4430796, and rs7501939, were associated with decreased risk of prostate cancer and were also associated, with marginal statistical significance, with increased risk of diabetes. The JAZF1 SNPs rs6968704 and rs10486567 were associated with decreased risk of prostate cancer but were not associated with diabetes. All five SNP,prostate cancer relationships did not substantially differ when the analyses were stratified by diabetic status or when diabetic status was controlled for in the model. Furthermore, the association of diabetes with prostate cancer was not altered when the SNPs were included in the logistic model. CONCLUSIONS These findings indicate that the HNF1B variants are directly associated with both diabetes and prostate cancer, that diabetes does not mediate these gene variant,prostate cancer relationships, and the relationship between these diseases is not mediated through these gene variants. Prostate 70: 601,607, 2010. © 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source]


An Early- and Late-Stage Convolution Model for Disease Natural History

BIOMETRICS, Issue 1 2004
Paul F. Pinsky
Summary. The standard convolution model of disease natural history posits an asymptomatic (preclinical) and a symptomatic (clinical) state. An augmented model includes, in both the preclinical and clinical states, an early and late stage of disease. In the case of cancer, the early stage would generally correspond to the organ-confined stages before there is evidence of cancer spread. We compute the number of screen-detected (preclinical) and clinical cases in the early and late stages expected under a given screening program and show how the model can be fit to data from a screening trial using maximum likelihood. We also develop expressions for sojourn time, lead time, and overdiagnosis in the context of the model, where each of the above concepts incorporates disease stage. As an example, we fit the model to data from the Mayo Lung Cancer Screening trial. [source]


Prostate cancer and PSA among statin users in the Finnish prostate cancer screening trial

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CANCER, Issue 7 2010
Teemu J. Murtola
Abstract Decreased risk of advanced prostate cancer has been reported among men using statins. However, the evidence on overall prostate cancer risk is conflicting. We compared the relative risk between current users and non-users of statins or other cholesterol-lowering medications in a population undergoing systematical prostate cancer screening. The study cohort comprised of 23,320 men participating in the screening arm of the Finnish prostate cancer screening trial during 1996,2004. Information on medication use was obtained from a comprehensive national prescription database. Cox proportional hazards regression was used to calculate multivariable adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) for prostate cancer. Serum prostate-specific antigen (PSA) level was compared between current users and non-users of cholesterol-lowering drugs. Compared with medication non-users, the overall prostate cancer incidence was decreased among statin users [HR 0.75, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.63,0.89]. The inverse association was dose-dependent with cumulative amount of statin use, and strongest for low-grade and early stage tumors. The incidence was nonsignificantly lower also among users of other types of cholesterol-lowering drugs (HR 0.62, 95% CI 0.28,1.38), but without dose-dependence. Age-adjusted median serum PSA tended to be lower among users of cholesterol-lowering drugs, but the relative risk decrease among statin users was not related to decreased PSA. Overall incidence of prostate cancer was lowered among statin users when bias due to differential PSA testing between medication users and non-users was eliminated by systematical prostate cancer screening. Cholesterol-lowering with statins seems beneficial for prostate cancer prevention. [source]


Biological aggressiveness of prostate cancer in the Finnish screening trial

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CANCER, Issue 3 2009
Marita Laurila
Abstract Prostate cancer aggressiveness was evaluated based on pathologic characterization of cases detected in the Finnish prostate cancer screening trial. The trial population consists of 80,458 men aged 55,67 years. A total of 32,000 men were randomized to the screening arm. The remaining 48,000 men formed the control arm. The interval cases and cancers among nonparticipants and in the control arm were identified from the Finnish Cancer Registry. Random samples were selected from screen-detected cases (126 of 543 in the first and 133 of 508 in the second round) and control arm cancers (133 out of 863), in addition to all 92 interval cancers and 106 cases among nonparticipants. All the biopsies were regraded according to the Gleason system. The expression of the proliferation antigen Ki-67 was determined in 479 cases (72%). More than half of the tumors diagnosed in the first round of screening were high-grade cancers (Gleason 7 or higher). In the second round, the proportion of low-grade cancers increased from 47% to 70%. Cancers in the screening arm were more commonly focal and fewer bilateral cancers were detected. The cancers among nonparticipants were the most aggressive group. The aggressiveness of the interval cancers was between the cancers detected in the first and the second round. Our results indicate that prostate cancers detected through screening are less biologically aggressive. This was most notable after the first screening round. Nonparticipants had more aggressive cancers. © 2008 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source]


Maximum likelihood inference on a mixed conditionally and marginally specified regression model for genetic epidemiologic studies with two-phase sampling

JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL STATISTICAL SOCIETY: SERIES B (STATISTICAL METHODOLOGY), Issue 2 2007
Nilanjan Chatterjee
Summary., Two-phase stratified sampling designs can reduce the cost of genetic epidemiologic studies by limiting expensive ascertainments of genetic and environmental exposure to an efficiently selected subsample (phase II) of the main study (phase I). Family history and some covariate information, which may be cheaply gathered for all subjects at phase I, can be used for sampling of informative subjects at phase II. We develop alternative maximum likelihood methods for analysis of data from such studies by using a novel regression model that permits the estimation of ,marginal' risk parameters that are associated with the genetic and environmental covariates of interest, while simultaneously characterizing the ,conditional' risk of the disease associated with family history after adjusting for the other covariates. The methods and appropriate asymptotic theories are developed with and without an assumption of gene,environment independence, allowing the distribution of the environmental factors to remain non-parametric. The performance of the alternative methods and of sampling strategies is studied by using simulated data involving rare and common genetic variants. An application of the methods proposed is illustrated by using a case,control study of colorectal adenoma embedded within the prostate, lung, colorectal and ovarian cancer screening trial. [source]


Screening for Wilms tumor and hepatoblastoma in children with Beckwith-Wiedemann syndromes: A cost-effective model,

PEDIATRIC BLOOD & CANCER, Issue 4 2001
D. Elizabeth McNeil MD
Abstract Background We undertook a cost-benefit analysis of screening for Wilms tumor and hepatoblastoma in children with Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome (BWS), a known cancer predisposition syndrome. The purpose of this analysis was twofold: first, to assess whether screening in children with BWS has the potential to be cost-effective; second, if screening appears to be cost-effective, to determine which parameters would be most important to assess if a screening trial were initiated. Procedures We used data from the BWS registry at the National Cancer Institute, the National Wilms Tumor Study (NWTS), and large published series to model events for two hypothetical cohorts of 1,000 infants born with BWS. One hypothetical cohort was screened for cancer until a predetermined age, representing the base case. The other cohort was unscreened. For our base case, we assumed: (a) sonography examinations three times yearly (triannually) from birth until 7 years of age; (b) screening would result in one stage shift downward at diagnosis for Wilms tumor and hepatoblastoma; (c) 100% sensitivity and 95% specificity for detecting clinical stage I Wilms tumor and hepatoblastoma; (d) a 3% discount rate; (e) a false positive result cost of $402. We estimated mortality rates based on published Wilms tumor and hepatoblastoma stage specific survival. Results Using the base case, screening a child with BWS from birth until 4 years of age results in a cost per life year saved of $9,642 while continuing until 7 years of age results in a cost per life-year saved of $14,740. When variables such as cost of screening examination, discount rate, and effectiveness of screening were varied based on high and low estimates, the incremental cost per life-year saved for screening up until age four remained comparable to acceptable population based cancer screening ranges (<,$50,000 per life year saved). Conclusions Under our model's assumptions, abdominal sonography examinations in children with BWS represent a reasonable strategy for a cancer screening program. A cancer screening trial is warranted to determine if, when, and how often children with BWS should be screened and to determine cost-effectiveness in clinical practice. Med Pediatr Oncol 2001;37:349,356. Published 2001 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source]