Highlights of This Issue

Abstract

Previous studies have implicated dysregulated miR202 expression in follicular lymphoma. To explore this, Hoffman and colleagues performed ribonucleoprotein immunoprecipitation-microarray (RIP-Chip) analysis to identify potential targets of miR203. The authors also used the Ingenuity Pathway tool to investigate functional miR202 targets. Using human blood samples, genetic association analysis revealed a significant association between a germline mutation (rs12355840) in the miR-202 precursor and follicular lymphoma risk. This work suggests that miR202 expression may serve as a follicular lymphoma biomarker.Five-year breast cancer survival rates are lower among Hispanic and African American women than among Non-Hispanic White (NHW) women. Livaudais and colleagues examined racial and ethnic differences in use and duration of adjuvant hormonal therapy among 3,588 postmenopausal women enrolled in the Women's Health Initiative Extension Study. The authors did not find significant differences in use or duration of use of adjuvant hormonal therapy by race/ethnicity. These findings should be confirmed in other populations, and potential reasons for discontinuation of therapy should be explored.To examine the performance of candidate biomarkers for kidney tumors, Kim and colleagues evaluated a three-marker assay composed of nicotinamide N-methyltransferase (NNMT), L-Plastin (LCP1), and nonmetastatic cells 1 protein (NM23A). Plasma levels of these three proteins were highly elevated in patients with kidney cancer. In blind sample tests, the diagnostic accuracy of NNMT alone or the three-marker assay was 0.913 and 0.932, respectively, and the sensitivity of NNMT alone or the three-marker assay was 71.9% and 95.7%, respectively. This three-marker assay represents a promising serum test for the early detection of malignant kidney tumors.Studies have shown that low-dose aspirin and calcium are effective low-risk strategies for prevention of CRC. Pence and colleagues used Markov chain Monte Carlo simulations to compare the cost-effectiveness of aspirin and calcium in combination with colonoscopy for primary prevention of CRC. The study reports that low-dose aspirin or calcium supplementation, in addition to colonoscopy, may be beneficial strategies for CRC prevention at small, incremental costs. This study suggests that the efficacy of colonoscopy screening may be cost-effectively increased by appropriate chemoprevention regimens.