International journal of cancer. Journal international du cancer
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Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection causes hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Associations with other cancers are not established. We systematically assessed associations between HBV infection and cancers in the US elderly population. ⋯ Associations were maintained in sensitivity analyses conducted in people without claims for cirrhosis or hepatitis C or human immunodeficiency virus infections. HBV infection is associated with increased risk of cancers other than HCC, such as bile duct cancers and DLBCL. The biological mechanisms by which HBV may lead to these cancers need to be explored.
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There is a major, unmet need for the treatment of cancer pain, and new targets and medicines are required. The transient receptor potential ankyrin 1 (TRPA1), a cation channel expressed by nociceptors, is activated by oxidizing substances to mediate pain-like responses in models of inflammatory and neuropathic pain. As cancer is known to increase oxidative stress, the role of TRPA1 was evaluated in a mouse model of cancer pain. ⋯ The antioxidant, α-lipoic acid, attenuated mechanical and cold allodynia and thigmotaxis behavior, but not heat allodynia. Whereas TRPV1, via an oxidative stress-independent pathway, contributes partially to heat hypersensitivity, oxidative stress-dependent activation of TRPA1 plays a key role in mediating thigmotaxis behavior and mechanical and cold allodynia in a cancer pain model. TRPA1 antagonists might be beneficial in the treatment of cancer pain.
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Statin use has been linked to improved prognosis of some cancer types, however, for endometrial cancer, the results are equivocal. We therefore examined the effect of statin use on endometrial cancer mortality. From the Danish Cancer Registry, we identified all women in Denmark aged 30-84 years with primary endometrial cancer during 2000-2012. ⋯ The associations did not differ substantially by intensity or cumulative amount of statin use. In secondary analyses including prediagnosis statin use, we observed reduced mortality among both continuing (pre- and postdiagnosis) users (HR 0.70, 95% CI 0.53-0.92) and new (postdiagnosis only) users (HR 0.43, 95% CI 0.29-0.65) compared to "never users." In sensitivity analyses with fixed exposure periods after the endometrial cancer diagnosis, the inverse association was more pronounced more than 5 years after the diagnosis. Our findings suggest that statin use may be associated with improved survival in endometrial cancer patients.
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The toll-like receptor (TLR) signaling pathway plays an important role in the innate immune responses and antigen-specific acquired immunity. Aberrant activation of the TLR pathway has a significant impact on carcinogenesis or tumor progression. Therefore, we hypothesize that genetic variants in the TLR signaling pathway genes are associated with overall survival (OS) of patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). ⋯ Specifically, we identified IRAK2 rs779901 C > T as a predictor of NSCLC OS, with a variant-allele (T) attributed hazards ratio (HR) of 0.78 [95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.67-0.91, P = 0.001] in the PLCO dataset, 0.84 (0.72-0.98, 0.031) in the Harvard dataset, and 0.81 (0.73-0.90, 1.08x10-4 ) in the meta-analysis of these two GWAS datasets. In addition, the T allele was significantly associated with an increased mRNA expression level of IRAK2. Our findings suggest that IRAK2 rs779901 C > T may be a promising prognostic biomarker for NSCLC OS.