Highlights of This Issue

Abstract

Few risk factors have been identified for adult glioma. Kitahara and colleagues conducted a pooled analysis of several case–control studies from the US and China. The authors report a 42% reduced risk of glioma for individuals with a history of diabetes. This association does not differ by sex or study design. Future studies will be required to evaluate the associations between type I and type 2 diabetes and glioma.High-risk human papillomavirus (hrHPV) tests have high sensitivity but triage strategies must be carefully developed to follow screen-positive women. Using a cohort of hrHPV-positive women, Dijkstra and colleagues evaluated several triage strategies for the ability to identify cervical intraepithelial neoplasia grade 3 or worse (CIN3+) within four years. The study finds that triaging hrHPV-positive women by cytology after 6 to 12 months combined with HPV16/18 genotyping were effective strategies to follow screen-positive women.The effect of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) on circulating metabolites has been widely studied. Xiao and colleagues compared sera levels of two metabolites in HCC cases versus patients with liver cirrhosis. Both metabolites discriminated HCC cases from cirrhotic controls in males and Caucasians but not in females or African Americans. This study demonstrates the potential of these metabolites as candidate biomarkers for HCC.Studies have often failed to find a link between self-reported whole-grain (WG) intake and prostate cancer. Plasma alkylresorcinol metabolites have been suggested as biomarkers for WG intake. Drake and colleagues investigated the dietary determinants of plasma alkylresorcinol metabolites in a nested case–control study. The authors report significant correlations between alkylresorcinol metabolites and WG intake but found no evidence of a protective effect of WG on incident prostate cancer.