Global burden, risk factors, and temporal trends of ureteral cancer: a comprehensive analysis of cancer registries.

BACKGROUND: Ureteral cancer is a rare cancer. This study aimed to provide an up-to-date and comprehensive analysis on the global trends of ureteral cancer incidence and its association with lifestyle and metabolic risk factors. METHODS: The incidence of ureteral cancer was estimated from the Cancer Incidence in Five Continents Plus and Global Cancer Observatory databases. We analyzed the (1) global incidence of ureteral cancer by region, country, sex, and age group by age-standardized rates (ASR); (2) associated risk factors on a population level by univariable linear regression with logarithm transformation; and (3) incidence trend of ureteral cancer by sex and age group in different countries by Average Annual Percentage Change (AAPC). RESULTS: The global age-standardized rate of ureteral cancer incidence in 2022 was 22.3 per 10,000,000 people. Regions with higher human development index (HDI), such as Europe, Northern America, and East Asia, were found to have a higher incidence of ureteral cancer. Higher HDI and gross domestic product (GDP) and a higher prevalence of smoking, alcohol drinking, physical inactivity, unhealthy dietary, obesity, hypertension, diabetes, and lipid disorder were associated with higher incidence of ureteral cancer. An overall increasing trend of ureteral cancer incidence was observed for the past decade, especially among the female population. CONCLUSIONS: Although ureteral cancer was relatively rare, the number of cases reported was rising over the world. The rising trends among females were more evident compared with the other subgroups, especially in European countries. Further studies could be conducted to examine the reasons behind these epidemiological changes and confirm the relationship with the risk factors identified.

Global Trends of Prostate Cancer by Age, and Their Associations With Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Human Development Index (HDI), Smoking, and Alcohol Drinking.

BACKGROUND: We aimed to examine the global disease burden and trends of prostate cancer incidence and mortality by age, and their associations with gross domestic product (GDP), human development index (HDI), smoking, and alcohol drinking. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We retrieved the Global Cancer Observatory (GLOBOCAN) database for the incidence and mortality of prostate cancer in 2020; the World Bank for GDP per capita; the United Nations for HDI; the WHO Global Health Observatory for prevalence of smoking and alcohol drinking; the Cancer Incidence in 5 Continents (CI5), WHO mortality database, for trend analysis. We presented the prostate cancer incidence and mortality using age-standardized rates. We examined their associations with GDP, HDI, smoking, and alcohol drinking by Spearman's correlations and multivariable regression. We estimated the 10-year trend of incidence and mortality by joinpoint regression analysis with average annual percent change with 95% confidence intervals in different age groups. RESULTS: A wide variation in the burden of prostate cancer with the highest mortality found in low-income countries while the highest incidence was observed in high-income countries. We found moderate to high positive correlations for GDP, HDI, and alcohol drinking with prostate cancer incidence, whilst a low negative correlation was observed for smoking. Globally, there was an increasing incidence but decreasing mortality of prostate cancer, and such trends were particularly prominent in Europe. Notably, the incidence increase was also found in the younger population aged <50 years. CONCLUSIONS: There was a global variation in the burden of prostate cancer associated with GDP, HDI, smoking, and alcohol drinking.

Improved method for benthic ecosystem health assessment by integrating chemical indexes into multiple biological indicator species-A case study of the Baiyangdian Lake, China.

A comprehensive and scientific assessment of benthic ecosystem health is key to the rational selection of endogenous pollution reduction technologies for lakes. However, current assessments are mainly limited to biological indicators and ignore the actual benthic ecosystem situations, such as the impact of eutrophication and heavy metal pollution, which may lead to the one-sidedness of the evaluation results. In this study, taking Baiyangdian Lake, the largest shallow mesotrophic-eutrophic lake in the North China Plain, as an example, the chemical assessment index and biological integrity index were first combined to estimate the biological conditions, nutritional status and heavy metal pollution of lakes. The indicator system incorporated three biological assessments (benthic index of biotic integrity (B-IBI), submerged aquatic vegetation index of biological integrity (SAV-IBI) and microbial index of biological integrity (M-IBI)) and three chemical assessments (dissolved oxygen (DO), comprehensive trophic level index (TLI) and index of geoaccumulation (Igeo)). Twenty-three attributes of B-IBI, fourteen attributes of SAV-IBI and twelve attributes of M-IBI were screened by range, responsiveness, and redundancy tests to keep the core metrics that were significantly correlated with disturbance gradients or showed strong discriminatory power between reference and impaired sites. The assessment results of B-IBI, SAV-IBI, and M-IBI showed significant differences in the response to anthropogenic activities and seasonal change, among which the submerged plants showed more significant seasonal differences. It is difficult to reach a comprehensive conclusion regarding the benthic ecosystem health status based on a single biological community. In comparison with biological indicators, the score of chemical indicators is relatively low. DO, TLI and Igeo provide an essential supplement for the benthic ecosystem health assessment of lakes with eutrophication and heavy metal pollution problems. Using the new integrated assessment method, the benthic ecosystem health of Baiyangdian Lake was rated as fair, especially the northern parts of the lake adjacent to the inflow mouth of the Fu River, which were in poor condition, indicating that the lake has experienced anthropogenic disturbance, resulting in eutrophication, heavy metal pollution and biological community degradation. Whether it's spring or summer, the integrated assessment method provides a more plausible and comprehensive view of benthic ecosystem health under the pressure of increasing human activities and changing habitat and hydrological conditions, overcoming the narrow perspective and uncertainties of the single-index method. Thus, it can assist lake managers in providing technical support for ecological indication and restoration.

Low-cost and resource-efficient monolithic photocatalyst with enhanced solar light utilization for the photocatalytic treatment of organic wastewater.

Developing low-cost, well-performing, and resource-efficient photocatalysts with enhanced solar light utilization can contribute to the practicability of photocatalytic techniques in organic wastewater treatment. This study fabricated and characterized a novel sunlight-driven BiOBr- and acetylene black (AB)-loaded monolithic photocatalyst. The fly ash-based geopolymer acts as photocatalyst support that can also provide adsorption sites and semiconductor metal oxide (Fe2O3). A conductive network in the geopolymer structure formed by AB can promote the separation of e--h+ pairs generated by active sites (BiOBr and Fe2O3). Moreover, the photothermal effect induced by AB can assist the photocatalytic reaction at the microinterface of the photocatalyst. This photocatalyst was suspended on the surface of an aqueous solution for sufficient contact with oxygen from the air and is thus beneficial for producing 1O2 and ·OH as the main active species. Within 30 min, it exhibited higher photothermal-photocatalytic activity with 96% removal efficiency of the target pollutant methylene blue (MB), which occurred at an initial concentration of 20 mg L-1. The demethylation and hydroxylation process induced by the active species constituted the primary degradation pathway for MB by Bi/AB/MFGP. Overall, this study provides a valuable reference for developing economical, effective, and practical photocatalysts and applying geopolymers in photocatalysis.

Occurrence and human health risk assessment of pharmaceuticals and personal care products in real agricultural systems with long-term reclaimed wastewater irrigation in Beijing, China.

Reclaimed wastewater (RW) is increasingly used to irrigate agricultural land and to alleviate agricultural water shortages worldwide. This usage has resulted in concerns about soil contamination by pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) and the human health risks associated with dietary crop intake. In this study, we systematically analysed the occurrence and accumulation of 11 PPCPs and one active metabolite in soils and various crops (cucumber, eggplant, long bean and wheat) from realistic RW irrigation fields with different irrigation histories (20, 30 and 40 years) in Beijing and evaluated the human health risks associated with the consumption of these crops. The 11 PPCPs and one active metabolite were detected at concentrations ranging from 0.67 to 22.92 ng L-1 in RW, 0.029-28.13 µg kg-1 in irrigated soil, and <0.01-28.01 µg kg-1 in crops. The concentrations of N4-acetyl-sulfamethoxazole and triclosan were higher than those of other PPCPs, with respective concentrations of 14.39-31.44 ng L-1 and 15.93-26.23 ng L-1 in RW, 10.92-23.29 µg kg-1 and 20.22-28.13 µg kg-1 in irrigated soil and 17.92-28.01 µg kg-1 and 8.92-14.91 µg kg-1 in crops. However, the estimated threshold of toxicological concern (TTC) and hazard quotient (HQ) values revealed that the concentrations of N4-acetyl-sulfamethoxazole and triclosan in crops irrigated with RW should be considered a de minimis risk to human health. The concentrations of 11 PPCPs and one active metabolite in soils and crops and the calculated fruit bioconcentration factors (BCFs) did not display obvious increases associated with the duration of RW irrigation in real agricultural systems (P > 0.05). The concentrations of the studied PPCPs in the RW used for irrigation followed different patterns from the concentrations detected in the irrigated soils and crops. Although the concentrations of sulfamethoxazole, sulfisoxazole, sulfamethazine and trimethoprim in RW were higher than those of many other studied PPCPs, their respective values in the irrigated soils and crops did not display a similar tendency. The uptake and accumulation of PPCPs varied among the crop species (P < 0.05). Although PPCPs were detected in eggplant, long bean and wheat (BCFs: not applicable-1.67, 0.03-1.35 and 0.01-5.01, respectively), PPCPs accumulated at increased levels in cucumber (BCFs 0.03-18.98). The estimated TTC and HQ values showed that the consumption of crops irrigated long-term with RW presents a de minimis risk to human health. However, further studies with more PPCPs and additional crop species need to be conducted, the synergistic effects of chemical mixtures of multiple PPCPs and the toxic effects of PPCP metabolites should be elucidated to obtain more reliable information on the safety of wastewater reuse for irrigation.