Special Issue "Epidemiologic Research and Cancer"

Guest Editor
Dr. Denise Boudreau
Group Health Center for Health Studies & Affiliate Associate Professor, Pharmaceutical Outcomes Research and Policy Program, Department of Pharmacy, University of Washington, 1730 Minor Ave, Suite 1600, Seattle, WA 98101, USA
Website: http://www.centerforhealthstudies.org/
E-Mail:

Dear Colleagues,

In regards to research on the epidemiologic of cancer, possible topics of interest may include: prevalence, incidence, mortality of overall and site-specific cancers (including trends and disparities); recurrence and progression of disease; risk factors (e.g., environmental, genetic, behavioral, medical conditions/co-morbidities, and medication use); trends in disease severity (e.g., stage, metastases); role of prevention, screening, and surveillance (including new diagnostic tests) on the epidemic; clinical and economic consequences; and prognosis and survival.

Dr. Denise Boudreau
Guest Editor

Submission Information

All manuscripts should be submitted to cancers@mdpi.org with a copy to the Guest Editor. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. Papers will be published continuously (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are refereed through a peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Cancers is an international peer-reviewed Open Access monthly journal published by MDPI.

For the first two issues, to be published in 2009 and 2010, the Article Processing Charges (APC) will be waived for well-prepared manuscripts. English correction and/or formatting fees of 250 CHF (Swiss Francs) will be charged in certain cases for those articles accepted for publication that require extensive additional formatting and/or English corrections.

• cancer
• epidemiology
• epidemic
• prevalence
• incidence
• mortality
• burden
• screening
• risk factors
• prevention

Type of Paper: Article
Title: One or Many Targets? Towards Resolving the Paradox of Single Versus Multicentric Breast Cancer From Epidemiological Data
Authors: Vincent Vinh-Hung ¹, Tibor Tot ² and Richard Gordon ³
Affiliations: ¹ Geneva University Hospitals, Geneva, Switzerland; E-Mail: anhxang@gmail.com
² Department of Pathology, Falun Central Hospital/ Falun S-79 182 Sweden; E-Mail: tibor.tot@ltdalarna.se
³ Department of Radiology, University of Manitoba/ GA216, HSC, 820 Sherbrook Street, Winnipeg, MB R3A 1R9 Canada; E-Mail: gordonr@cc.umanitoba.ca
Abstract: There is growing evidence showing that breast carcinoma is a lobar disease that develops as multiple tumor foci within a single lobe. This paradigm of the sick lobe disease implies lobar field cancerization, in contradiction with the concept of screening which posits that recurrence and metastasis can be prevented if the —implicitly unique— primary tumor is detected and removed early enough, that is when its size is less than 2 mm. We confront that paradox by modeling the US SEER epidemiological data in parallel with detailed mapping histopathological data from Sweden.
Keywords: breast cancer; sick lobe

Type of Paper: Review
Title: The Clinical Significance of Unknown Sequence Variants in BRCA Genes
Author: Valentina Calò
Affiliation: Department of Oncology, Section of Medical Oncology, Regional Reference Center for the Biomolecular Characterization and Genetic Screening of Hereditary tumors, University of Palermo, Via del Vespro 127, 90127; E-Mail: valevicio@yahoo.it
Abstract: Germline mutations in BRCA1/2 genes are responsible for a large proportion of hereditary breast and/or ovarian cancers (HBOC). Many highly penetrant predisposition alleles have been identified and include frameshift or nonsense mutations which lead to the translation of a truncated protein. Other alleles contain missense mutations which result in amino acid substitution and intronic variant with splicing effect. The finding of variant of uncertain/unclassified significance (VUS) is a possible result that can complicate rather than improve the risk assessment process. VUSs are mainly missense mutations but also include a number of intronic variants and in-frame deletions and insertions.Over 2,000 unique BRCA1 and BRCA2 missense variants have been identified, located throughout the gene (BIC database). Up to 10-20% of the BRCA tests report the identification of a variant of uncertain significance. There are many methods to discriminate deleterious/high-risk from neutral/low-risk unclassified variants, VUS (i.e. analysis of the cosegregation in families of the Uvs, measure of the influence of the UVs on the wild-type activity of the proteins, comparison of sequence conservation across multiple species). Our manuscript will review the studies on BRCA VUS in order to clarify their clinical relevance.

Type of Paper: Review
Title: The Changing Face of Oesophageal Cancer
Authors: Rachel Melhado and Olga Tucker
Affiliation: Academic Department of Surgery, University Hospital Birmingham, UK; E-Mail: raye732001@yahoo.co.uk
Abstract: Oesophageal cancer is the eighth most common form of malignancy worldwide, and is remarkable in its variation in worldwide incidence. Europe has experienced a steady increase in incidence, and this is explained by the migration of oesophageal and gastric cancers towards the gastro-oesophageal junction. This increased incidence of adenocarcinoma of the gastro-oesophageal junction has been associated with gastro-oesophageal reflux disease and Barretts oesophagus. Despite the association with Barretts oesophagus, the outcome for patients with Barretts remains an enigma with survival data that does not differ greatly from the general population. This review article will focus on the epidemiology of oesophageal carcinoma with special reference to Barretts oesophagus, current trials, and novel treatments aimed at preventing its progression to invasive disease.