| 11. |
- Pizarro, Ana Beatriz, et al.
(author)
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Workplace interventions to reduce the risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection outside of healthcare settings
- 2021
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In: Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. - 1465-1858. ; 2021:9
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Objectives: This is a protocol for a Cochrane Review (intervention). The objectives are as follows:. To assess the benefits and harms of interventions in non-healthcare-related workplaces to reduce the risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection relative to other interventions or no intervention.
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| 12. |
- Pizarro, Ana Beatriz, et al.
(author)
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Workplace interventions to reduce the risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection outside of healthcare settings
- 2022
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In: Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. - 1465-1858. ; 5:5, s. CD015112-
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Research review (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Background: Although many people infected with SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2) experience no or mild symptoms, some individuals can develop severe illness and may die, particularly older people and those with underlying medical problems. Providing evidence-based interventions to prevent SARS-CoV-2 infection has become more urgent with the spread of more infectious SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern (VoC), and the potential psychological toll imposed by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Controlling exposures to occupational hazards is the fundamental method of protecting workers. When it comes to the transmission of viruses, such as SARS-CoV-2, workplaces should first consider control measures that can potentially have the most significant impact. According to the hierarchy of controls, one should first consider elimination (and substitution), then engineering controls, administrative controls, and lastly, personal protective equipment (PPE). Objectives: To assess the benefits and harms of interventions in non-healthcare-related workplaces to reduce the risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection relative to other interventions, or no intervention. Search methods: We searched MEDLINE, Embase, Web of Science, Cochrane COVID-19 Study Register, the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety (CCOHS), Clinicaltrials.gov, and the International Clinical Trials Registry Platform to 14 September 2021. We will conduct an update of this review in six months. Selection criteria: We included randomised control trials (RCT) and planned to include non-randomised studies of interventions. We included adult workers, both those who come into close contact with clients or customers (e.g. public-facing employees, such as cashiers or taxi drivers), and those who do not, but who could be infected by co-workers. We excluded studies involving healthcare workers. We included any intervention to prevent or reduce workers' exposure to SARS-CoV-2 in the workplace, defining categories of intervention according to the hierarchy of hazard controls, i.e. elimination; engineering controls; administrative controls; personal protective equipment. Data collection and analysis: We used standard Cochrane methods. Our primary outcomes were incidence rate of SARS-CoV-2 infection (or other respiratory viruses), SARS-CoV-2-related mortality, adverse events, and absenteeism from work. Our secondary outcomes were all-cause mortality, quality of life, hospitalisation, and uptake, acceptability, or adherence to strategies. We used the Cochrane RoB 2 tool to assess the risk of bias, and GRADE methods to assess the certainty of evidence for each outcome. Main results: Elimination of exposure interventions. We included one study examining an intervention that focused on elimination of hazards. This study is an open-label, cluster-randomised, non-inferiority trial, conducted in England in 2021. The study compared standard 10-day self-isolation after contact with an infected person to a new strategy of daily rapid antigen testing and staying at work if the test is negative (test-based attendance). The trialists hypothesised that this would lead to a similar rate of infections, but lower COVID-related absence. Staff (N = 11,798) working at 76 schools were assigned to standard isolation, and staff (N = 12,229) at 86 schools to the test-based attendance strategy. The results between test-based attendance and standard 10-day self-isolation were inconclusive for the rate of symptomatic PCR-positive SARS-COV-2 infection rate ratio ((RR) 1.28, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.74 to 2.21; 1 study, very low-certainty evidence)). The results between test-based attendance and standard 10-day self-isolation were inconclusive for the rate of any PCR-positive SARS-COV-2 infection (RR 1.35, 95% CI 0.82 to 2.21; 1 study, very low-certainty evidence). COVID-related absenteeism rates were 3704 absence days in 566,502 days-at-risk (6.5 per 1000 days at risk) in the control group and 2932 per 539,805 days-at-risk (5.4 per 1000 days at risk) in the intervention group (RR 0.83; 95% CI 0.55 to 1.25). The certainty of the evidence was downgraded to low, due to imprecision. Uptake of the intervention was 71 % in the intervention group, but not reported for the control intervention. The trial did not measure other outcomes, SARS-CoV-2-related mortality, adverse events, all-cause mortality, quality of life, and hospitalisation. We found one ongoing RCT about screening in schools, using elimination of hazard strategies. Personal protective equipment. We found one ongoing non-randomised study on the effects of closed face shields to prevent COVID-19 transmission. Other intervention categories. We did not find studies in the other intervention categories. Authors' conclusions: We are uncertain whether a test-based attendance policy affects rates of PCR-postive SARS-CoV-2 infection (any infection; symptomatic infection) compared to standard 10-day self-isolation amongst school and college staff. Test-based attendance policy may result in little to no difference in absence rates compared to standard 10-day self-isolation. As a large part of the population is exposed in the case of a pandemic, an apparently small relative effect that would not be worthwhile from the individual perspective may still affect many people, and thus, become an important absolute effect from the enterprise or societal perspective. The included study did not report on any other primary outcomes of our review, i.e. SARS-CoV-2-related mortality and adverse events. No completed studies were identified on any other interventions specified in this review, but two eligible studies are ongoing. More controlled studies are needed on testing and isolation strategies, and working from home, as these have important implications for work organisations.
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| 13. |
- Schmidt, Marjanka K, et al.
(author)
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Do MDM2 SNP309 and TP53 R72P interact in breast cancer susceptibility? A large pooled series from the breast cancer association consortium
- 2007
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In: Cancer Research. - 0008-5472 .- 1538-7445. ; 67:19, s. 9584-9590
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Association studies in large series of breast cancer patients can be used to identify single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) contributing to breast cancer susceptibility. Previous studies have suggested associations between variants in TP53 (R72P) and MDM2 (SNP309) and cancer risk. Data from molecular studies suggest a functional interaction between these genes. We therefore investigated the effect of TP53 R72P and MDM2 SNP309 on breast cancer risk and age at onset of breast cancer in a pooled series of 5,191 cases and 3,834 controls from the Breast Cancer Association Consortium (BCAC). Breast cancer risk was not found to be associated with the combined variant alleles [odds ratio (OR), 1.00; 95% confidence interval (95% CI), 0.81–1.23]. Estimated ORs were 1.01 (95% CI, 0.93–1.09) per MDM2 SNP309 allele and 0.98 (95% CI, 0.91–1.04) for TP53 R72P. Although we did find evidence for a 4-year earlier age at onset for carriers of both variant alleles in one of the breast cancer patient series of the BCAC (the German series), we were not able to confirm this effect in the pooled analysis. Even so, carriers of both variant alleles did not have different risk estimates for bilateral or estrogen receptor–positive breast cancer. In conclusion, in this large collaborative study, we did not find an association of MDM2 SNP309 and TP53 R72P, separately or in interaction, with breast cancer. This suggests that any effect of these two variants would be very small and possibly confined to subgroups that were not assessed in our present study.
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| 14. |
- Shu, Xiang, et al.
(author)
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Associations of obesity and circulating insulin and glucose with breast cancer risk : a Mendelian randomization analysis
- 2019
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In: International Journal of Epidemiology. - : OXFORD UNIV PRESS. - 0300-5771 .- 1464-3685. ; 48:3, s. 795-806
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Background: In addition to the established association between general obesity and breast cancer risk, central obesity and circulating fasting insulin and glucose have been linked to the development of this common malignancy. Findings from previous studies, however, have been inconsistent, and the nature of the associations is unclear. Methods: We conducted Mendelian randomization analyses to evaluate the association of breast cancer risk, using genetic instruments, with fasting insulin, fasting glucose, 2-h glucose, body mass index (BMI) and BMI-adjusted waist-hip-ratio (WHRadj BMI). We first confirmed the association of these instruments with type 2 diabetes risk in a large diabetes genome-wide association study consortium. We then investigated their associations with breast cancer risk using individual-level data obtained from 98 842 cases and 83 464 controls of European descent in the Breast Cancer Association Consortium. Results: All sets of instruments were associated with risk of type 2 diabetes. Associations with breast cancer risk were found for genetically predicted fasting insulin [odds ratio (OR) = 1.71 per standard deviation (SD) increase, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.26-2.31, p = 5.09 x 10(-4)], 2-h glucose (OR = 1.80 per SD increase, 95% CI = 1.3 0-2.49, p = 4.02 x 10(-4)), BMI (OR = 0.70 per 5-unit increase, 95% CI = 0.65-0.76, p = 5.05 x 10(-19)) and WHRadj BMI (OR = 0.85, 95% CI = 0.79-0.91, p = 9.22 x 10(-6)). Stratified analyses showed that genetically predicted fasting insulin was more closely related to risk of estrogen-receptor [ER]-positive cancer, whereas the associations with instruments of 2h glucose, BMI and WHRadj BMI were consistent regardless of age, menopausal status, estrogen receptor status and family history of breast cancer. Conclusions: We confirmed the previously reported inverse association of genetically predicted BMI with breast cancer risk, and showed a positive association of genetically predicted fasting insulin and 2-h glucose and an inverse association of WHRadj BMI with breast cancer risk. Our study suggests that genetically determined obesity and glucose/insulin-related traits have an important role in the aetiology of breast cancer.
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| 15. |
- Stevens, Kristen N, et al.
(author)
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19p13.1 is a triple negative-specific breast cancer susceptibility locus
- 2012
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In: Cancer Research. - 0008-5472 .- 1538-7445. ; 72, s. 1795-
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The 19p13.1 breast cancer susceptibility locus is a modifier of breast cancer risk in BRCA1 mutation carriers and is also associated with risk of ovarian cancer. Here we investigated 19p13.1 variation and risk of breast cancer subtypes, defined by estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR), and human epidermal growth factor receptor-2 (HER2) status, using 48,869 breast cancer cases and 49,787 controls from the Breast Cancer Association Consortium (BCAC). Variants from 19p13.1 were not associated with breast cancer overall or with ER-positive breast cancer but were significantly associated with ER-negative breast cancer risk [rs8170 Odds Ratio (OR)=1.10, 95% Confidence Interval (CI) 1.05 - 1.15, p=3.49 x 10-5] and triple negative (TN) (ER, PR and HER2 negative) breast cancer [rs8170 OR=1.22, 95% CI 1.13 - 1.31, p=2.22 x 10-7]. However, rs8170 was no longer associated with ER-negative breast cancer risk when TN cases were excluded [OR=0.98, 95% CI 0.89 - 1.07, p=0.62]. In addition, a combined analysis of TN cases from BCAC and the Triple Negative Breast Cancer Consortium (TNBCC) (n=3,566) identified a genome-wide significant association between rs8170 and TN breast cancer risk [OR=1.25, 95% CI 1.18 - 1.33, p=3.31 x 10-13]. Thus, 19p13.1 is the first triple negative-specific breast cancer risk locus and the first locus specific to a histological subtype defined by ER, PR, and HER2 to be identified. These findings provide convincing evidence that genetic susceptibility to breast cancer varies by tumor subtype and that triple negative tumors and other subtypes likely arise through distinct etiologic pathways.
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| 16. |
- Stevens, Kristen N., et al.
(author)
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Common Breast Cancer Susceptibility Loci Are Associated with Triple-Negative Breast Cancer
- 2011
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In: Cancer Research. - 1538-7445. ; 71:19, s. 6240-6249
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Triple-negative breast cancers are an aggressive subtype of breast cancer with poor survival, but there remains little known about the etiologic factors that promote its initiation and development. Commonly inherited breast cancer risk factors identified through genome-wide association studies display heterogeneity of effect among breast cancer subtypes as defined by the status of estrogen and progesterone receptors. In the Triple Negative Breast Cancer Consortium (TNBCC), 22 common breast cancer susceptibility variants were investigated in 2,980 Caucasian women with triple-negative breast cancer and 4,978 healthy controls. We identified six single-nucleotide polymorphisms, including rs2046210 (ESR1), rs12662670 (ESR1), rs3803662 (TOX3), rs999737 (RAD51L1), rs8170 (19p13.1), and rs8100241 (19p13.1), significantly associated with the risk of triple-negative breast cancer. Together, our results provide convincing evidence of genetic susceptibility for triple-negative breast cancer. Cancer Res; 71(19); 6240-9. (C)2011 AACR.
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| 17. |
- Timmins, Iain R., et al.
(author)
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International pooled analysis of leisure-time physical activity and premenopausal breast cancer in women from 19 cohorts
- 2024
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In: Journal of Clinical Oncology. - : American Society of Clinical Oncology. - 0732-183X .- 1527-7755. ; 42:8, s. 927-939
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- PURPOSE: There is strong evidence that leisure-time physical activity is protective against postmenopausal breast cancer risk but the association with premenopausal breast cancer is less clear. The purpose of this study was to examine the association of physical activity with the risk of developing premenopausal breast cancer.METHODS: We pooled individual-level data on self-reported leisure-time physical activity across 19 cohort studies comprising 547,601 premenopausal women, with 10,231 incident cases of breast cancer. Multivariable Cox regression was used to estimate hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% CIs for associations of leisure-time physical activity with breast cancer incidence. HRs for high versus low levels of activity were based on a comparison of risk at the 90th versus 10th percentiles of activity. We assessed the linearity of the relationship and examined subtype-specific associations and effect modification across strata of breast cancer risk factors, including adiposity.RESULTS: Over a median 11.5 years of follow-up (IQR, 8.0-16.1 years), high versus low levels of leisure-time physical activity were associated with a 6% (HR, 0.94 [95% CI, 0.89 to 0.99]) and a 10% (HR, 0.90 [95% CI, 0.85 to 0.95]) reduction in breast cancer risk, before and after adjustment for BMI, respectively. Tests of nonlinearity suggested an approximately linear relationship (Pnonlinearity = .94). The inverse association was particularly strong for human epidermal growth factor receptor 2-enriched breast cancer (HR, 0.57 [95% CI, 0.39 to 0.84]; Phet = .07). Associations did not vary significantly across strata of breast cancer risk factors, including subgroups of adiposity.CONCLUSION: This large, pooled analysis of cohort studies adds to evidence that engagement in higher levels of leisure-time physical activity may lead to reduced premenopausal breast cancer risk.
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| 18. |
- Tinetti, G., et al.
(author)
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A chemical survey of exoplanets with ARIEL
- 2018
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In: Experimental Astronomy. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0922-6435 .- 1572-9508. ; 46:1, s. 135-209
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Thousands of exoplanets have now been discovered with a huge range of masses, sizes and orbits: from rocky Earth-like planets to large gas giants grazing the surface of their host star. However, the essential nature of these exoplanets remains largely mysterious: there is no known, discernible pattern linking the presence, size, or orbital parameters of a planet to the nature of its parent star. We have little idea whether the chemistry of a planet is linked to its formation environment, or whether the type of host star drives the physics and chemistry of the planet’s birth, and evolution. ARIEL was conceived to observe a large number (~1000) of transiting planets for statistical understanding, including gas giants, Neptunes, super-Earths and Earth-size planets around a range of host star types using transit spectroscopy in the 1.25–7.8 μm spectral range and multiple narrow-band photometry in the optical. ARIEL will focus on warm and hot planets to take advantage of their well-mixed atmospheres which should show minimal condensation and sequestration of high-Z materials compared to their colder Solar System siblings. Said warm and hot atmospheres are expected to be more representative of the planetary bulk composition. Observations of these warm/hot exoplanets, and in particular of their elemental composition (especially C, O, N, S, Si), will allow the understanding of the early stages of planetary and atmospheric formation during the nebular phase and the following few million years. ARIEL will thus provide a representative picture of the chemical nature of the exoplanets and relate this directly to the type and chemical environment of the host star. ARIEL is designed as a dedicated survey mission for combined-light spectroscopy, capable of observing a large and well-defined planet sample within its 4-year mission lifetime. Transit, eclipse and phase-curve spectroscopy methods, whereby the signal from the star and planet are differentiated using knowledge of the planetary ephemerides, allow us to measure atmospheric signals from the planet at levels of 10–100 part per million (ppm) relative to the star and, given the bright nature of targets, also allows more sophisticated techniques, such as eclipse mapping, to give a deeper insight into the nature of the atmosphere. These types of observations require a stable payload and satellite platform with broad, instantaneous wavelength coverage to detect many molecular species, probe the thermal structure, identify clouds and monitor the stellar activity. The wavelength range proposed covers all the expected major atmospheric gases from e.g. H2O, CO2, CH4 NH3, HCN, H2S through to the more exotic metallic compounds, such as TiO, VO, and condensed species. Simulations of ARIEL performance in conducting exoplanet surveys have been performed – using conservative estimates of mission performance and a full model of all significant noise sources in the measurement – using a list of potential ARIEL targets that incorporates the latest available exoplanet statistics. The conclusion at the end of the Phase A study, is that ARIEL – in line with the stated mission objectives – will be able to observe about 1000 exoplanets depending on the details of the adopted survey strategy, thus confirming the feasibility of the main science objectives.
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| 19. |
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