A French national breast and thyroid cancer screening programme for survivors of childhood, adolescent and young adult (CAYA) cancers - DeNaCaPST programme.

BACKGROUND: Survival of childhood, adolescent and young adult (CAYA) cancers has increased with progress in the management of the treatments and has reached more than 80% at 5 years. Nevertheless, these survivors are at great risk of second cancers and non-malignant co-morbidities in later life. DeNaCaPST is a non-interventional study whose aim is to organize a national screening for thyroid cancer and breast cancer in survivors of CAYA cancers. It will study the compliance with international recommendations, with the aim, regarding a breast screening programme, of offering for every woman living in France, at equal risk, an equal screening. METHOD: DeNaCaPST trial is coordinated by the INSERM 1018 unit in cooperation with the LEA (French Childhood Cancer Survivor Study for Leukaemia) study's coordinators, the long term follow up committee and the paediatric radiation committee of the SFCE (French Society of Childhood Cancers). A total of 35 centres spread across metropolitan France and la Reunion will participate. FCCSS (French Childhood Cancer Survivor Study), LEA and central registry will be interrogated to identify eligible patients. To participate, centers agreed to perform a complete "long-term follow-up consultations" according to good clinical practice and the guidelines of the SFCE (French Society of Children Cancers). DISCUSSION: As survival has greatly improved in childhood cancers, detection of therapy-related malignancies has become a priority even if new radiation techniques will lead to better protection for organs at risk. International guidelines have been put in place because of the evidence for increased lifetime risk of breast and thyroid cancer. DeNaCaPST is based on these international recommendations but it is important to recognize that they are based on expert consensus opinion and are supported by neither nonrandomized observational studies nor prospective randomized trials in this specific population. Over-diagnosis is a phenomenon inherent in any screening program and therefore such programs must be evaluated.

Relevance of human parechovirus detection in cerebrospinal fluid samples from young infants with sepsis-like illness.

BACKGROUND: The human parechoviruses (HPeVs) were recently recognized as important viral pathogens involved in various illnesses in young children. However, routine detection is not performed in most clinical laboratories. Therefore, in this study, we aim to assess the relevance of HPeV detection in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of infants, according to clinical presentation. METHODS: A total of 120 CSF specimens collected during 2012 from infants aged less than 1 year and previously reported negative for Herpes simplex virus (HSV) and enterovirus were selected. HPeV detection was performed with a commercially available real-time RT-PCR and HPeV strains from positive samples were subsequently genotyped by sequencing. RESULTS: HPeV RNA was detected in nine (7.5%) CSF samples. The median age of infected children was 41 days (range: 19-122 days). HPeV genotyping could be performed on five samples and three HPeV-3, one HPeV-1, and one HPeV-4 were identified. Hyperthermia associated with mottled skin was the predominant clinical presentation. Most clinical presentations of HPeV-infected infants were mild with a final diagnosis of sepsis-like illness. The median hospital stay was 3.5 days and five children received antibiotics. CONCLUSION: Routine detection of HPeV in CSF may allow differential diagnosis of enterovirus infection and improve etiologic identification of sepsis-like illness in children.