Spatial patterns and the associated factors for breast cancer hospitalization in the rural population of Fujian Province, China.

BACKGROUND: Despite the known increasing incidence of breast cancer in China, evidence on the spatial pattern of hospitalization for breast cancer is scarce. This study aimed to describe the disparity of breast cancer hospitalization in the rural population of Southeast China and to explore the impacts of socioeconomic factors and heavy metal pollution in soil. METHODS: This study was conducted using the New Rural Cooperative Medical Scheme (NRCMS) claims data covering 20.9 million rural residents from 73 counties in Southeast China during 2015-2016. The associations between breast cancer hospitalization and socioeconomic factors and soil heavy metal pollutants were evaluated with quasi-Poisson regression models and geographically weighted Poisson regressions (GWPR). RESULTS: The annual hospitalization rate for breast cancer was 101.40/100,000 in the studied area and the rate varied across different counties. Overall, hospitalization for breast cancer was associated with road density (ß = 0.43, P = 0.02), urbanization (ß = 0.02, P = 0.002) and soil cadmium (Cd) pollution (ß = 0.01, P = 0.02). In the GWPR model, a stronger spatial association of Cd, road density and breast cancer hospitalization was found in the northeast regions of the study area while breast cancer hospitalization was mainly related to urbanization in the western regions. CONCLUSIONS: Soil Cd pollution, road density, and urbanization were associated with breast cancer hospitalization in different regions. Findings in this study might provide valuable information for healthcare policies and intervention strategies for breast cancer.

The Landscape of Lipid Metabolism in Lung Cancer: The Role of Structural Profiling.

The aim of this study was to explore the relationship between lipids with different structural features and lung cancer (LC) risk and identify prospective biomarkers of LC. Univariate and multivariate analysis methods were used to screen for differential lipids, and two machine learning methods were used to define combined lipid biomarkers. A lipid score (LS) based on lipid biomarkers was calculated, and a mediation analysis was performed. A total of 605 lipid species spanning 20 individual lipid classes were identified in the plasma lipidome. Higher carbon atoms with dihydroceramide (DCER), phosphatidylethanolamine (PE), and phosphoinositols (PI) presented a significant negative correlation with LC. Point estimates revealed the inverse associated with LC for the n-3 PUFA score. Ten lipids were identified as markers with an area under the curve (AUC) value of 0.947 (95%, CI: 0.879-0.989). In this study, we summarized the potential relationship between lipid molecules with different structural features and LC risk, identified a panel of LC biomarkers, and demonstrated that the n-3 PUFA of the acyl chain of lipids was a protective factor for LC.

Dietary Inflammatory Nutrients and Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma Risk: A Case-Control Study.

We conducted a case-control study (532 cases and 532 control) in Chinese adults to investigate the independent and interactive effects of dietary nutrients (pro- or anti-inflammation) on Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma (ESCC) risk. Dietary data were collected using a food questionnaire survey that included 171 items. Two algorithms, the Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selector Operation (LASSO) and Bayesian Kernel Machine Regression (BKMR) were employed to select indicators and evaluate the interactive effect of nutrients' mixture on ESCC risk. Thirteen nutrients were selected, including three pro-inflammatory nutrients (protein, fat and carbohydrate) and ten anti-inflammatory nutrients (fiber, Vitamin A, riboflavin, niacin, Vitamin C, Fe, Se, MUFA, n-3 PUFA and n-6 PUFA). Single-exposure effects of fat, carbohydrate and fiber significantly contributed to ESCC risk. The pro-inflammatory nutrients' submodel discovered that the combined effect was statistically associated with increased ESCC risk. In addition, a higher fat level was significantly associated with ESCC risk. On the contrary, for fiber and riboflavin, the anti-inflammatory nutrients' submodel delineated a significant negative effect on the risk of ESCC. Our result implies that dietary nutrients and their inflammatory traits significantly impacted ESCC occurrence. Additional studies are warranted to verify our findings.

The spatiotemporal correlation of PM2.5 concentration on esophageal cancer hospitalization rate in Fujian province of China.

This paper aimed to explore the correlation between PM2.5 concentration and hospitalization rate of esophageal cancer in Fujian province, and tried to find out the accurate lag effect between PM2.5 and hospitalization rate in 70 counties from the linear and nonlinear aspects. We extracted inpatients data of esophageal cancer from the New Rural Cooperative Medical Scheme (NRCMS) database and air pollutant PM2.5 grid data published by the atmospheric composition analysis group. The study showed that the hospitalization rate of esophageal cancer presented spatial aggregation in 70 counties of Fujian province. Southeast urban agglomerations had high hospitalization rates, while central and western regions had low hospitalization rates. The study found that the spatial distribution of the hospitalization rate of esophageal cancer in 2016 was not consistent with that of the PM2.5 concentration in the same year. The concentration of PM2.5 in 2003 and 2004 had the strongest correlation with the hospitalization rate of esophageal cancer in 2016, with Pearson correlation coefficient r value of - 0.365 and Geodetector q-statistic value of 0.148 (p < 0.05). Our findings showed that there existed a 13-year lag period of air pollutant PM2.5 on the esophageal cancer hospitalization rate, which can provide helpful guidance in the early screening strategy of esophageal cancer in Fujian. The research progress of this paper will help to understand the lag period of the impact of air pollutants on the hospitalization rate of esophageal cancer, provide valuable information for the prevention and treatment strategy of esophageal cancer in Fujian province, and provide relevant experience for alike regions.

Dietary fatty acid patterns and risk of oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma.

Background: To characterize and examine the associations between dietary fatty acid intake patterns and the risk of oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC). Methods: A total of 422 patients and 423 controls were recruited. Dietary fatty acids were entered into a factor analysis. Multivariable logistic regression and restricted cubic spline were used to evaluate the risk of ESCC specific for different dietary fatty acid patterns (FAPs). A forest plot was applied to show the association between FAPs and ESCC risk after stratification by lifestyle exposure factors (tobacco smoking, alcohol drinking, pickled food, fried food, hot food, hard food). Results: The factor analysis generated four major fatty acid patterns: a medium- and long-chain SFA (MLC-SFA) pattern; an even-chain unsaturated fatty acid (EC-UFA) pattern, a saturated fatty acid (SFA) pattern and an n-3 long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acid (n-3 LC-PUFA) pattern. In the multivariate-adjusted model, the odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) of ESCC were 2.07 (1.31, 3.26) and 0.53 (0.34, 0.81) for the highest versus the lowest tertiles of the EC-UFA pattern and n-3 LC-PUFA pattern, respectively. The MLC-SFA and SFA patterns were not associated with ESCC. An association between FAPs and ESCC risk after stratification by lifestyle exposure factors was also observed. Conclusions: Our study indicates that the EC-UFA pattern and n-3 LC-PUFA pattern intake are associated with ESCC, providing a potential dietary intervention for ESCC prevention.

Preparation and in vitro/in vivo characterization of enteric-coated nanoparticles loaded with the antihypertensive peptide VLPVPR.

Our previous study revealed that the peptide Val-Leu-Pro-Val-Pro-Arg (VLPVPR), which was prepared using deoxyribonucleic acid recombinant technology, effectively decreased the blood pressure of spontaneous hypertensive rats; however, the effect only lasts 6 hours, likely due to its low absorption in the gastrointestinal tract. To overcome this problem, the purpose of this study was to characterize (methoxy-polyethylene glycol)-b-poly(D,L-lactide-co-glycolide)-b-poly(L-lysine) nanoparticles as in vitro and in vivo carriers for the effective delivery of VLPVPR. In our study, the VLPVPR nanoparticles were prepared using a double emulsion method, coated with Eudragit S100, and freeze-dried to produce enteric-coated nanoparticles. The optimized parameters from the double emulsion method was obtained from orthogonal experiments, including drug loading (DL) and encapsulated ratio (ER) at 6.12% and 86.94%, respectively, and the average particle size was below 100 nm. The release experiment demonstrated that the nanoparticles were sensitive to pH: almost completely released at pH 7.4 after 8 hours, but demonstrated much less release at pH 4.5 or pH 1.0 in the same amount of time. Therefore, the nanoparticles are suitable for enteric release. In vivo compared with the untreated group, the medium and high doses of orally administered VLPVPR nanoparticles reduced blood pressure for more than 30 hours, demonstrating that these nanoparticles have long-lasting and significant antihypertensive effects in spontaneously hypertensive rats.