Research Highlights - News Updates
Summaries of research conducted by DCEG investigators.
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How Breast Cancer Risk Assessment Tools Work: Cancer Currents
The latest Cancer Currents: An NCI Cancer Research Blog post features DCEG researchers, Drs. Ruth Pfeiffer and Peter Kraft, who discuss how breast cancer risk assessment tools are created and how people can use them to understand and manage their risk.
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Taking Daily Multivitamin Not Associated with Lower Risk of Death
The latest NCI Media Advisory featured research led by Erikka Loftfield, investigator in the Metabolic Epidemiology Branch (MEB), which showed that daily multivitamin use was not associated with lower risk of death.
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Connect for Cancer Prevention: Update on the Cohort
The Connect for Cancer Prevention Study is a new prospective cohort seeking to enroll 200,000 adults in the United States. Connect is designed to further investigate the etiology of cancer and its outcomes, which may inform new approaches in precision prevention and early detection. We will update the research community as to the progress of Connect across multiple topics of interest.
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Power of Cohorts: Public Health Advances from Prospective Cohort Studies
Prospective cohort studies have informed our understanding of cancer, directing scientific inquiries in basic and clinical laboratory science, as well as translational studies and treatment trials, and led to the development of guidelines and regulatory actions to protect public health. Learn about the different DCEG cohort studies based in the United States and the major accomplishments they have achieved to date.
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Mosaic Loss of Chromosome X in Older Women Influenced by Inherited Factors
NCI Media Advisory features DCEG research which identified inherited genetic variants that may predict loss of X chromosome in older women (mLOX).
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Gen X Projected to Experience Greater Increases in Cancer Incidence than Previous Generations
In age-period-cohort modeling of SEER data, researchers led by Philip Rosenberg in the Biostatistics Branch projected that Generation X will experience larger per-capita increases in the incidence of leading cancers combined than any prior generation.
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Breast Cancer Survivors Treated with Anthracyclines and/or Trastuzumab Have Long-term Increase in Cardiovascular Disease Risk
In the NCI-Kaiser Permanente Breast Cancer Survivors Cohort, DCEG experts observed increased risk of cardiovascular disease that breast cancer survivors treated with anthracyclines and/or trastuzumab that persisted 10+ years after diagnosis and was heightened for women diagnosed before age 65, compared to women who did not receive chemotherapy.
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Early-Pregnancy Thyroid Autoimmunity Associated with Maternal Thyroid Cancer
Data from the Finnish Maternity cohort suggest early-pregnancy thyroid autoimmunity is associated with elevated risk for maternal papillary thyroid cancer and may shed light onto mechanisms of thyroid carcinogenesis.
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LGBTQ+ Voices: Listening to Sexual and Gender Minority People Affected by Cancer
Sarah Jackson, Ph.D., M.P.H., Earl Stadtman investigator in the Infections and Immunoepidemiology Branch, was featured in a Cancer Currents: An NCI Cancer Research blog post on cancer disparities among LGBTQ+ people.
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Analysis Identifies 50 New Genomic Regions Associated with Kidney Cancer Risk
In a new analysis of genetic susceptibility to kidney cancer, researchers identified 50 new areas across the genome that are associated with the risk of developing kidney cancer. These insights could one day be used to advance our understanding of the molecular basis of kidney cancer, inform screening efforts for those at highest risk, and identify new drug targets.
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Cancer Treatment Disparities Persist for People with HIV
Using the NCI’s HIV/AIDS Cancer Match Study data from 2001-2019, Jennifer McGee-Avila, postdoctoral fellow in the Infections and Immunoepidemiology Branch, finds that people with HIV are less likely to receive treatment for many different cancer types compared to people without HIV.
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For Childhood Cancer Survivors, Inherited Genetic Factors Influence Risk of Cancers Later in Life
Common inherited genetic factors that predict cancer risk in the general population may also predict elevated risk of new cancers among childhood cancer survivors. Findings could potentially inform screening and long-term follow-up of those at greatest risk.
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Enduring Guidelines: Methods and Dual Stain for Cervical Cancer Screening Triage
Continual improvement of cervical cancer screening and management to include new technologies and approaches requires a flexible approach to guidelines. A description of the Enduring Guidelines effort—methods and principles to ensure swift adoption of changes—and a review and decision on the first new technology to be added to the guidelines—dual stain cytology—were published in the Journal of the Lower Genital Tract Diseases.
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Benefits of Reducing Smoking Quantified in Prospective Cohort Study
Reductions in cigarettes per day and the amount of time smoked were both associated with lower risk of lung cancer among men in the prospective cohort study, Alpha-Tocopherol, Beta-Carotene Cancer Prevention Study. Serial questionnaires collected every four months allowed for precision of estimates.
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Carcinogenic Industrial Air Pollution Emitted Inequitably Across the U.S.
African American, Hispanic, and Latino people, as well as individuals with limited education or experiencing poverty, reside in areas disproportionately affected by carcinogenic industrial emissions, a new study finds.
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Adding Polygenic Risk Score Improves Breast Cancer Risk Prediction for Black Women
Risk prediction for incident breast cancer among U.S. Black women was improved with the addition of polygenic risk score (PRS) to questionnaire-based factors. Ruth Pfeiffer and colleagues validated the performance of a previously published PRS for Black women and tested its performance when combined with models using questionnaire-based risk factors. Performance metrics were similar to models for women of European ancestry.
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Helicobacter pylori Genome Project Publishes Findings
The Helicobacter pylori Genome Project, an international and multidisciplinary team of ~250 scientists, have sequenced the genomes and mapped the population structure of over one thousand strains of the bacterium H. pylori, known to cause non-cardia gastric cancer, the most common anatomical subtype, collected from around the world.
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IARC Finds Eliminating or Reducing Alcohol Intake Can Lower Risk of Oral, Esophageal Cancer
Christian Abnet and Katherine McGlynn participated in an expert panel, convened by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, which found sufficient evidence that reduction or cessation of alcohol consumption reduces risk for both oral and esophageal cancer.
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Chromosomal Mosaicism May Influence Risk for Burkitt Lymphoma in Children from sub-Saharan Africa
A multi-disciplinary, international team of experts identified differences in the number of mosaic chromosomal alterations (mCAs) in children from sub-Saharan Africa with Burkitt lymphoma (BL), compared to children without BL. Similar patterns were observed in sub-Saharan African adults. These findings suggest a role for environmental factors in the frequency of mCAs in sub-Saharan African individuals and indicate mCAs in circulating leukocytes could have relevance for future BL risk. These novel findings were published in Nature Communication on December 6, 2023.
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Childhood Leukemia Linked to PFAS Levels Measured in Mother's First Trimester
Rena Jones, Mary Ward, and colleagues, observed increasing concentrations of a specific per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in the serum of pregnant women to be associated with increased risk of acute lymphoblastic leukemia in their offspring. Investigators in the Occupational and Environmental Epidemiology Branch are the first to explore the association between prenatal PFAS exposure and risk of childhood leukemia. Their findings were published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.