Search

Abstract: Background: High-risk HPV (HR-HPV) are associated with the development of cervical cancer, the most common cancer in women in developing countries. Reliable diagnosis of HR-HPV infection combined with simple procedures to collect and store biological samples, could improve primary screening programs and vaccine strategies in these areas. Objective: To evaluate HR-HPV detection in conventional and dried samples. Study design: The presence of HR-HPV in 31 women in Republic of Congo (Central Africa) has been investigated by using standard cervical samples and dried cervical samples collected on filter paper and vaginal tampons. The detection of HPV DNA was performed in the Laboratory of virology in Lille (France) by using Hybrid capture 2 and HPV 16/18/45 Probe Set Test. Results: 22 standard samples were found positive for the detection of HR-HPV (71%). HPV 16/18/45 was displayed in 15 out of 22 samples positive for HR-HPV (68%). The correlations between HPV detection by using standard samples and samples dried on filter paper and dried tampons were 90.3% (kappa=0.77) and 80.6% (kappa=0.5) respectively. The sensitivity and the specificity of HPV detection reached 91% and 89%, respectively, with samples dried on filter paper and were 86% and 67%, respectively, for dried tampons compared with standard samples. Conclusion: Dried cervical samples and dried vaginal tampons can represent an alternative to conventional sampling to reduce barriers to large screening programs in developing countries and to facilitate storage and transport to reference centers. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The article presents information on several research papers related to different diseases. The paper titled "Long-term risedronate treatment normalizes mineralization and continues to preserve trabecular architecture: Sequential triple biopsy studies with micro-computed tomography" presents research over women with postmenopausal osteoporosis. Another paper, "Adult weight gain and histopathologic characteristics of breast cancer among postmenopausal women" focuses on relationship between weight gain and breast cancer. Another paper titled "Combined estrogen and testosterone use and risk of breast cancer in postmenopausal women" evaluates the relation between the use of estrogen and testosterone therapies and breast cancer.

The summaries of several papers about women's health are presented. These papers include: fetal reduction from twins to a singleton; symptomatic patients with an early viable intrauterine pregnancy; effect of soy protein containing isoflavones on menopausal women; and effects of estradiol on left ventricular diastolic function in hypertensive postmenopausal women. Also included are: effects of a full bladder and patient positioning on pelvic organ prolapse assessment; human papillomavirus genomes in squamous cell carcinomas of the uterine cervix; and role of reduction mammaplasty in primary prevention strategies for women at high risk of breast cancer.

The article presents several papers on several issues related to women's health. The paper titled "Influence of Tamoxifen on Carotid Intima-Media Thickness in Postmenopausal Women," by T. Simon, P. Boutouyrie, J.M. Simon, B. Laloux, C. Tornigand, A.I. Tropeano, S. Laurent and P. Jaillon was based on the comparison of sixty seven menopausal women having cancer who were treated with tamoxifen for less than or equal to one year, and thirty seven menopausal women having cancer who were never treated with tamoxifen. The paper titled "Effect of Postmenopausal Hormone Therapy on Cognitive Function: The Heart and Estrogen/Progestin Replacement Study," by d. Grady, K. Yaffe, M. Kristof, and F. Berrett-Connor was based on the measurement of cognitive function in 517 women given conjugated estrogen plus medroxyprogesterone acetate and 546 women treated with placebo. The paper titled "Vitamin D and Attainment of Peak Bone Mass Among Peripubertal Finish Girls: A 3-Year Prospective Study," by M.K. Lehtonen-Veromaa, T.T. Mottonen, I.O.Nuotio, K.M. Irjala, A.E. Leino and J.S. Viikari was based on the study of relationship of Vitamin D status with accrual of bone mineral density and bone mineral apparent density in Finnish girls.

Breast cancer is the most common malignancy occurring in women. The treatment of breast cancer is a complex, multistep process involving surgical treatment, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, hormone therapy, targeted therapy, and very often rehabilitation. After the treatment of the underlying disease, or still in its course, there remains a problem of deformation of the chest. Although the number of women opting for breast reconstructive surgery increases every year, the number of such procedures in Poland is low. The aim of the study was to investigate the reasons why women after amputation of the breast due to cancer are not likely to undergo breast reconstructive surgery. Material and methods. The study comprised 73 women, residents of the province of Silesia, aged between 37 and 79 years, who had undergone mastectomy for malignancy in the years 1987-2013. Results. From all of the reasons given by women for refraining from breast reconstruction, the most frequently pointed was the fear of being subjected to further surgery (38.3%). 23 women (31.5%) admitted that they were also afraid of postoperative pain. Similarly, a common response (35.6%) was that it is not essential for their mental state, and 30% of respondents fully accepted their appearance after mastectomy. Concern about the effect of failed reconstruction was reported by 24.6% of the women, and the fear that the surgery could negatively affect the process of cancer treatment by 27.4% of respondents. Lack of information about the capabilities and knowledge of breast reconstruction methods was not an important factor in decision-making. Conclusions. Most of the surveyed women who abandon breast reconstruction surgery, make this decision on the basis of more than one reasons. Fear of undergoing a second surgical procedure and pain related to it were the most important reasons for the refusal of breast reconstruction. An important factor in the decision to desist from breast reconstruction is the age of the patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article lists various medical journals for women's health which includes "Statin use and risk of breast cancer," by G. Pocobelli and colleagues, "Increased risk of parkinsonism in women who underwent oophorectomy before menopause," by W. A. Rocca and "Sentinel node biopsy is important in mastectomy for ductal carcinoma in situ," by F. J. Dominguez and colleagues.

The article presents abstracts of medical research. They include "Screen-and-treat approaches for cervical cancer prevention in low-resource settings: A randomized controlled trial," "Trends in the incidence of venous thromboembolism during pregnancy or postpartum: A 30-year population-based study," "Routine ultrasound screening in the third trimester: A population-based study," "Gestational diabetes: A reappraisal of HBA1c as a screening test," and "Breast cancer risk with postmenopausal hormonal treatment."

Several abstracts of articles about human diseases is presented, including "Gabapentin for Hot Flashes in 420 Women With Breast Cancer: A Randomised Double-Blind Placebo-Controlled Trial," "Testosterone Patch Increases Sexual Activity and Desire in Surgically Menopausal Women With Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder," "Does Maternal Race or Ethnicity Affect the Expression of Severe Preeclampsia?" "The Probability for a Pap Test to be Abnormal is Directly Proportional to HPV Viral Load: Results From a Swiss Study Comparing HPV Testing and Liquid-Based Cytology to Detect Cervical Cancer Precursor in 13,842 Women" and "Comorbidity and Survival Disparities Among Black and White Patients With Breast Cancer."

This article presents several research summaries from the medical literature. The first summary deals with the cervical cancer screening among women without a cervix. In association with this research, most women in the United States who have undergone hysterectomy are not at risk of cervical cancer; they underwent the procedure for benign disease and they no longer have a cervix. In 1996, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommended that routine Papanicolaou (Pap) smear screening is unnecessary for these women. The second summary deals with ovarian cancer detected non-invasively by contrast-enhanced power Doppler ultrasound.

Data Mining (DM) is a set of techniques that allow to analyse data from different perspectives and summarising it into useful information. Data mining has been increasingly used in medicine, especially in oncology. Data preprocessing is the most important step of knowledge extraction process and allows to improve the performance of the DM models. Breast cancer (BC) becomes the most common cancer among females worldwide and the leading cause of women's death. This paper aims to perform a systematic mapping study to analyse and synthesise studies on the application of preprocessing techniques for a DM task in breast cancer.Therefore, 66 relevant articles published between 2000 and October 2018 were selected and analysed according to five criteria: year/channel of publication, research type, medical task, empirical type and preprocessing task. The results show that Conferences and journals are the most targeted publication sources, researchers were more interested in applying preprocessing techniques for the diagnosis of BC, historical-based evaluation was the most used empirical type in the evaluation of preprocessing techniques in BC, and data reduction was the most investigated task of preprocessing in BC. However, A low number of papers discussed treatment which encourages researchers to devote more efforts to this task. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Context: Researchers administering surveys seek to balance data quality, sources of error, and practical concerns when selecting an administration mode. Rarely are decisions about survey administration based on the background of study participants, although socio-demographic characteristics like age, education, and race may contribute to participants' (non)responses.Objectives: In this study, we describe differences in paper- and web-based surveys administered in a national cancer survivor study of women with a history of cancer to compare the ability of each survey administrative mode to provide quality, generalizable data.Methods: We compared paper- and web-based survey data by socio-demographic characteristics of respondents, missing data rates, scores on primary outcome measure, and administrative costs and time using descriptive statistics, tests of mean group differences, and linear regression.Results: Our findings indicate that more potentially vulnerable patients preferred paper questionnaires and that data quality, responses, and costs significantly varied by mode and participants' demographic information. We provide targeted suggestions for researchers conducting survey research to reduce survey error and increase generalizability of study results to the patient population of interest.Conclusion: Researchers must carefully weigh the pros and cons of survey administration modes to ensure a representative sample and high-quality data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents abstracts of some research papers related to women's health. According to the paper "Breast Cancer Treatment in Older Women: Does Getting What You Want Improve Your Long-Term Body Image and Mental Health?," little is known about the impact of surgical treatment on body image and health outcomes in older breast cancer patients. According to the article "Results From a Randomized Controlled Trial of an Educational Intervention," recognizing that an expectant father may influence a mother's decision to breast, or formula-feed, researchers tested the effectiveness of a simple, educational intervention that was designed to encourage fathers to advocate for breastfeeding and to assist his partner if she chooses to breast-feed.

The article presents abstracts of papers concerning women's health which include "Diabetes and endometrial cancer: An evaluation of the modifying effects of other known risk factors," "Hormone replacement therapy and ovarian cancer risk: A meta-analysis," and "Double jeopardy: Depressive symptoms and rapid subsequent pregnancy in adolescent mothers."

The article lists several research papers related to women's health hygiene which includes "Human papillomavirus and Papanicolaou tests to screen for cervical cancer," "material vitamin D deficiency increases the risk of preeclampsia," and "Gender-specific associations of short sleep duration with prevalent and incident hypertension: The Whitehall II Study."

The article presents abstracts related to breast cancer which include viability of estradiol therapy for hormone receptor-positive breast cancer, longitudinal study on the association of lactation and premenopausal breast cancer, and relation between alcohol and breast cancer among postmenopausal women.

The article presents abstracts on medical topics which include "Epidemiology and course of anorexia nervosa in the community," "Comparison of breast cancer mortality rates with those of ovarian and colorectal carcinoma" and "The outcomes of 27,063 women with unstaged endometrioid uterine cancer."

The article presents abstracts of medical research. They include "Clomiphene, metformin, or both for infertility in the polycystic ovary syndrome," "Long-term exposure to air pollution and incidence of cardiovascular events in women" and "A prospective study of postmenopausal hormone use and ovarian cancer risk."

The article presents abstracts of medical research on women's health. They include "Social Networks, Social Support, and Survival After Breast Cancer Diagnosis," "Missed Opportunities: Radical Disparities in Adjuvant Breast Cancer Treatment," and "Effect of Raloxifene on Cardiovascular Adverse Events in Postmenopausal Women with Osteoporosis."

The article presents abstracts of articles on women's health including "Continued Axillary Sampling is Unnecessary and Provides no Further Information to Sentinel Node Biopsy in Staging Breast Cancer," "Differences in Serum Sex Hormone and Plasma Lipid Levels in Caucasian and African-American Premenopausal Women," "Estrogen-Plus-Progestin Use and Mammographic Density in Postmenopausal Women: Women’s Health Initiative Randomized Trial," "Optimizing Adjuvant Endocrine Therapy in Postmenopausal Women With Early-Stage Breast Cancer: A Decision Analysis," "Dietary Phytoestrogens and Lung Cancer Risk."

These are abstracts of studies about women's health. The research of A.S. Brown et al was about the role of prenatal exposure to influenza in increasing the risk for schizophrenia. The effects of prior vaginal delivery or prior vaginal birth after cesarean delivery on success of a trial of labor after a cesarean delivery was studied by I. Hendler. The research of C.K. Welt et al was about the role of recombinant human leptin adminisration in women with hypothalamic amenorrhea in improving reproductive, thyroid and growth hormone axes and markers of bone formation. The association between femal breast cancer and cutaneous melanoma was studied by W. Goggins et al.

The article presents abstracts of cytopathology research. They include "An Audit of the Cervical Screening History of Leicestershire Women With Cervical Cancer 193-2000," "One-Year Audit of Invasive Cervical Carcinoma in Two Trusts," and "Borderline Nuclear Change: Is it a Reliable Reporting Category? Results of National Slide Exchange Study."

The article presents abstracts related to women diseases-related studies, which include a comparison of liquid-based cytology with conventional cytology for detection of cervical cancer precursors, the efficacy of daily fiber intake on reproductive function and fertility preservation in young women with epithelial ovarian cancer.

The article presents abstracts on medical research including "Successful Skeletal Aging," "Breast cancer after use of estrogen plus progestin in postmenopausal women" and "Endocrine therapy plus zoledronic acid in premenopausal breast cancer."

Objectives: As the benefit of clinical breast examination (CBE) over that of screening mammography alone in reducing breast cancer mortality is uncertain, it is informative to monitor its contribution to interim measures of effectiveness of a screening programme. Here, the contribution of CBE to screening mammography in the early detection of breast cancer was evaluated. Setting: Four Canadian organised breast cancer screening programmes. Methods: Women aged 50-69 receiving dual screening (CBE and mammography) (n=300,303) between 1996 and 1998 were followed up between screen and diagnosis. Outcomes assessed by mode of detection (CBE alone, mammography alone, or both CBE and mammography) included referral rate, positive predictive value, pathological features of tumours (size, nodal status, morphology), and cancer detection rates overall and for small cancers (≤10 mm or node-negative). Heterogeneity in findings across programmes was also assessed. Results: On first versus subsequent screen, CBE alone resulted in 28.5-36.7% of referrals, and 4.6-5.9% of cancers compared with 52.6-60.1% of referrals and 60.0-64.3% of cancers for mammography alone. Among cancers detected by CBE, 83.6-88.6% were also detected by mammography, whereas for mammographically detected cancers only 31.7-37.2% were also detected by CBE. On average, CBE increased the rate of detection of small invasive cancers by 2-6% over rates if mammography was the sole detection method. Without CBE, programmes would be missing three cancers for every 10,000 screens and 3-10 small invasive cancers in every 100,000 screens. Conclusions: Inclusion of CBE in an organised programme contributes minimally to early detection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Although fertility preservation (FP) treatment options have increased, the existing evidence suggests that many women with cancer do not feel well supported in making these decisions, but find them stressful and complex and fail to take up fertility care at this crucial time. Whilst existing reviews have all made important contributions to our understanding of the FP decision-making process, none of them examine solely and specifically these processes for women of reproductive age with a diagnosis of any cancer, leaving a gap in the knowledge base. Given the expectation that care is patient-centred, our review aims to address this gap which may be of help to those managing patients struggling to make difficult decisions in the often brief period before potentially sterilizing cancer treatment is started.Objective and Rationale: Underpinning this narrative review was the question 'What factors hinder the decision-making process for women with any cancer and contemplating FP treatment?' Our objectives were to (i) assess and summarize this existing literature, (ii) identify the factors that hinder this decision-making process, (iii) explore to what extent these factors may differ for women choosing different methods of FP and (iv) make recommendations for service delivery and future research.Search Methods: A systematic search of the medical and social science literature from the 1 January 2005 up to the end of January 2016 was carried out using three electronic databases (Web of Science (PubMed), Ovid SP Medline and CINAHL via Ebsco). Included in the review were quantitative, qualitative and mixed-method studies. Reference lists of relevant papers were also hand searched. From the 983 papers identified, 46 papers were included. Quality assessment was undertaken using the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool and thematic analysis was used to analyse the data.Outcomes: From the analysis, 6 key themes with 15 sub-themes emerged: (i) fertility information provision (lack of information, timing of the information, patient-provider communication); (ii) fear concerning the perceived risks associated with pursuing FP (delaying cancer treatment, aggravating a hormone positive cancer and consequences of a future pregnancy); (iii) non-referral from oncology (personal situation, having a hormone positive cancer, FP not a priority and transition between service issues); (iv) the dilemma (in survival mode, whether to prioritize one treatment over another); (v) personal situation (parity, relationship status) and (iv) costs (financial concerns).Wider Implications: This review has found that a wide range of internal and external factors impact the FP decision-making process. Key external issues related to current service delivery such as the provision and timing of FP information, and lack of referral from oncology to the fertility clinic. However, internal issues such as women's fears concerning the perceived risks associated with pursuing FP also hindered decision-making but these 'risks' were typically overestimated and non-evidence based. These findings suggest that the implementation of a range of decision support interventions may be of benefit within the clinical care pathway of FP and cancer. Women would benefit from the provision of more evidence-based FP information, ideally received at cancer diagnosis, in advance of seeing a fertility specialist, for example through the implementation of patient decision aids. Healthcare professionals in both oncology and fertility services may also benefit from the implementation of training programmes and educational tools targeted at improving the communication skills needed to improve collaborative decision-making and deliver care that is patient-centred. Exploration of the current barriers, both intellectual and practical, that prevent some patients from accepting FP will help care providers to do better for their patients in the future. Finally, the extent to which a poorer prognosis and moral, ethical and religious beliefs influence the FP decision-making process also warrant further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Breast cancer is one of the three most common cancers worldwide and is the most common malignancy in women. Treatment approaches for breast cancer are diverse and varied. Clinicians must balance risks and benefits when deciding treatments, and models have been developed to support this decision-making. Genomic risk scores (GRSs) may offer greater clinical value than standard clinicopathological models, but there is limited evidence as to whether these models perform better than the current clinical standard of care. Methods: PREDICT and GRSs were adapted using data from the original papers. Univariable Cox proportional hazards models were produced with breast cancer-specific survival (BCSS) as the outcome. Independent predictors of BCSS were used to build multivariable models with PREDICT. Signatures which provided independent prognostic information in multivariable models were incorporated into the PREDICT algorithm and assessed for calibration, discrimination and reclassification. Results: EndoPredict, MammaPrint and Prosigna demonstrated prognostic power independent of PREDICT in multivariable models for ER-positive patients; no score predicted BCSS in ER-negative patients. Incorporating these models into PREDICT had only a modest impact upon calibration (with absolute improvements of 0.2–0.8%), discrimination (with no statistically significant c-index improvements) and reclassification (with 4–10% of patients being reclassified). Conclusion: Addition of GRSs to PREDICT had limited impact on model fit or treatment received. This analysis does not support widespread adoption of current GRSs based on our implementations of commercial products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the operations of heterosexism and strategies to counter it in a particular service context: the context of psychosocial support services for women with cancer. The paper draws on findings from a participatory, qualitative study set in Ontario, Canada in which 26 lesbians were interviewed about their experiences of cancer diagnosis, treatment, health care and social support, and their feelings and perceptions about shifts in identity, body, sexuality and relationships. This paper focuses on findings related to the changes research participants perceived as necessary in the provision and organization of cancer support services, in order to increase access and ensure equity for lesbians with cancer and their families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To learn about the gendered experience of bodily loss, this paper analyzes interviews with women diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer (N = 32). Across the interviews, we find that specific bodily sites – hair, breast(s), thinness – and the gender norms associated with these sites do not loosen their grip near the end of life, but rather constitute meaningful sites of loss. Interviews demonstrate that when women lose a valued physical characteristic they also feel the loss of gendered statuses associated with that aspect of the body. We theorize the resulting emotional experience as positionality grief, or sorrow over an injured sense of self and that is tied to a sense of lowered place on social hierarchies. For feminist scholars, our study links women's complex desires with their particular forms of embodiment that delimit spaces of possibility in the social world. For Bourdieusian scholars, our study calls attention to the importance of focusing not just on the acquisition, but the loss of embodied capital in social life. The implications of these bodily changes, therefore, structure how women grapple with gender and sexuality over the course of their lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Breast cancer (BC) is the most common malignancy among women in Canada. Adjuvant treatment in early BC can reduce the risk of BC recurrence. Historically, the decision for adjuvant chemotherapy for early BC was made only based on clinical and tumour characteristics. In recent years, there has been an effort toward developing genomic assays as a predictive and prognostic tool to improve precision in estimating disease recurrence, sensitivity to systemic treatment and ultimately with clinical utility for guidance regarding adjuvant systemic treatment(s). There are various commercial genomic tests available for early-stage ER+/HER-2 negative BC. This paper will review the Oncotype DX 21-gene Recurrence Score (RS), MammaPrint, EndoPredict, Prosigna®, and Breast Cancer Index (BCI) genomic assays. We will also focus on these genomic assays' clinical application and utility in node-positive early-stage BC based on the most recent evidence and guidance recommendations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Breast cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer death for women all over the world and mammography is thought of as one of the main tools for early detection of breast cancer. In order to detect the breast cancer, computer aided technology has been introduced. In computer aided cancer detection, the detection and segmentation of mass are very important. The shape of mass can be used as one of the factors to determine whether the mass is malignant or benign. However, many of the current methods are semi-automatic. In this paper, we investigate fully automatic segmentation method. Results: In this paper, a new mass segmentation algorithm is proposed. In the proposed algorithm, a fully automatic marker-controlled watershed transform is proposed to segment the mass region roughly, and then a level set is used to refine the segmentation. For over-segmentation caused by watershed, we also investigated different noise reduction technologies. Images from DDSM were used in the experiments and the results show that the new algorithm can improve the accuracy of mass segmentation. Conclusions: The new algorithm combines the advantages of both methods. The combination of the watershed based segmentation and level set method can improve the efficiency of the segmentation. Besides, the introduction of noise reduction technologies can reduce over-segmentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In India, cervical cancer is the second most common type of cancer in females. Pap smear is a simple cytology test for the detection of cancer in its early stages. To obtain the best results from the Pap smear, expert pathologist are required. Availability of pathologist in India is far below the required numbers, especially in rural parts. In this paper, multiple texturebased features are introduced for the extraction of relevant and informative features from single-cell images. First-order histogram, GLCM, LBP, Laws, and DWT are used for texture feature extraction. These methods help to recognise the contour of the nucleus and cytoplasm. ANN and SVM are used to classify the single-cell images either normal or cancerous based on the trained features. ANN and SVM are used on every single feature as well as on the combination of all features. Best results are obtained with a combination of all features. The system is evaluated on generated dataset MNITJ, containing 330 single cervical cell images and also on publicly available benchmark Herlev data set. Experimental results show that the proposed texturebased features give significantly better results in cervical cancer detection when compared with state of the art shape-based features regarding accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides information about the cervical cancer screening. Strong evidences prove that well-organized screening has decreased mortality in several countries including Finland, Sweden and Scotland. Failure in local screening programmes has been revealed by a review of the screening history of women who experiencing invasive cervical cancer.

Serious illness and its treatment frequently changes a woman's sense of herself and her body. Narrative medicine posits that individuals permitted to tell their stories regain control over the plotline of the illness, reclaim the central role as protagonist, and thus diminish the sense of helplessness, marginalisation, and isolation that are inevitable aspects of serious disease. The women presented here speak about losses that occur during treatment for advanced cancer. These losses include: loss of the former body; loss of one or both breasts; loss of hair; loss of fertility, and changes in weight, energy, and sexuality. This paper will not review the medical literature on the psychological aspects of change in appearance secondary to disease and/or treatment. As a way of broadening our understanding of what women attempt to communicate to their care providers about who they are and who they are becoming through the experience of illness, this paper will present brief excerpts from the interviews of four women talking about issues of identity and bodily change, using concepts of feminine identity developed by the French psychoanalytic theorist Hélène Cixous in her essay, The laugh of the Medusa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses two papers on the benefits of biennial mammography screening to women. Results of the papers showed that the benefits of the screening outweigh the potential harms for women in their 40s at risk of breast cancer. In the first paper, researcher Nicolien van Ravesteyn et al. determined the relative risk at which the harm-benefit ratio of the patients' mammography screening that of women older than 50.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women occurring worldwide. Some of the procedures used to diagnose breast cancer are mammogram, breast ultrasound, biopsy, breast magnetic resonance imaging, and blood tests such as complete blood count. Detecting breast cancer at an early stage plays an important role in diagnostic and curative procedures. This paper aims to develop a predictive model for detecting the breast cancer using blood samples data containing age, body mass index (BMI), glucose, insulin, homeostasis model assessment (HOMA), leptin, adiponectin, resistin, and chemokine monocyte chemoattractant protein 1 (MCP-1).The two main challenges encountered in this process are identification of biomarkers and the precision of disease prediction accuracy. The proposed methodology employs principal component analysis in a peculiar approach followed by random forest tree prediction model to discriminate between healthy and breast cancer patients. This approach extracts high communalities, a linear combination of input attributes in a systematic procedure as principal axis elements. The iteratively extracted principal axis elements combined with minimum number of input attributes are able to predict the disease with higher accuracy of classification with increased sensitivity and specificity score. The results proved that the proposed approach generates a higher predictor performance than the previous reported results by opting relevant extracted principal axis elements and attributes that commend the classifier with increased performance measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose Cervical cancer (CxCa) incidence and mortality remain unacceptably high in South Carolina, USA, presenting an ideal opportunity for intervention. To address this need, Cervical Cancer-Free South Carolina developed an academic-community partnership with researchers and students at a public university to design, implement, and evaluate a theory-based CxCa communication campaign, It’s My Time. The paper aims to discuss this issue.Design/methodology/approach The goal of this campaign was to decrease CxCa by increasing human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination and appropriate screening. This paper describes the development, implementation, and evaluation of a successful theory-based CxCa prevention communication campaign for college women based on formative audience research and targeted messages delivered to audience segments through new and traditional communication channels. The health belief model (HBM) served as a theoretical framework for the campaign throughout development, implementation, and evaluation.Findings This campaign demonstrated the effectiveness of the HBM to address CxCa prevention, including HPV vaccine acceptability. The campaign aimed to increase perceptions of susceptibility, which were low, by emphasizing that HPV is a sexually transmitted infection. A community-based grassroots approach to addressing disparities in CxCa prevention increased benefits and decreased barriers. Social media emerged as a particularly appropriate platform to disseminate cues to action. In total, 60 percent of participants who responded to an anonymous web-based survey evaluation indicated that they received the HPV vaccine as a result of campaign messages.Originality/value This paper offers practical suggestions to campaign planners about building academic-community partnerships to develop theory-based communication campaigns that include conducting formative research, segmenting target audiences, engaging with young people, and incorporating social media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To compare the diagnostic accuracy of transvaginal ultrasound (TVS) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for detecting myometrial infiltration (MI) in endometrial carcinoma. Methods: An extensive search of papers comparing TVS and MRI in assessing MI in endometrial cancer was performed in MEDLINE (PubMed), Web of Science, and Cochrane Database from January 1989 to January 2017. Quality was assessed using Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies-2 (QUADAS-2) tool. Results: Our extended search identified 747 citations but after exclusions we finally included in the meta-analysis 8 articles. The risk of bias for most studies was low for most 4 domains assessed in QUADAS-2. Overall, pooled estimated sensitivity and specificity for diagnosing deep MI were 75% (95% confidence interval [CI]=67%-82%) and 82% (95% CI=75%-93%) for TVS, and 83% (95% CI=76%-89%) and 82% (95% CI=72%-89%) for MRI, respectively. No statistical differences were found when comparing both methods (p=0.314). Heterogeneity was low for sensitivity and high for specificity for TVS and MRI. Conclusion: MRI showed a better sensitivity than TVS for detecting deep MI in women with endometrial cancer. However, the difference observed was not statistically significant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background:Early diagnosis and improved treatment outcomes have increased breast cancer survival rates that, in turn, have led to increased numbers of women undergoing follow-up after completion of primary treatment. The current workload growth is unsustainable for breast cancer specialists who also provide care for women newly diagnosed or with a recurrence. Appropriate and acceptable follow-up care is important; yet, currently we know little about patient preferences. The aim of this study was to explore the preferences of Australian breast cancer survivors for alternative modes of delivery of follow-up services.Methods:A self-administered questionnaire (online or paper) was developed. The questionnaire contained a discrete choice experiment (DCE) designed to explore patient preferences with respect to provider, location, frequency and method of delivery of routine follow-up care in years 3, 4 and 5 after diagnosis, as well as the perceived value of 'drop-in' clinics providing additional support. Participants were recruited throughout Australia over a 6-month period from May to October 2012. Preference scores and choice probabilities were used to rank the top 10 most preferred follow-up scenarios for respondents.Results:A total of 836 women participated in the study, of whom 722 (86.4%) completed the DCE. In the absence of specialist follow-up, the 10 most valued surveillance scenarios all included a Breast Physician as the provider of follow-up care. The most preferred scenario is a face-to-face local breast cancer follow-up clinic held every 6 months and led by a Breast Physician, where additional clinics focused on the side effects of treatment are also provided.Conclusion:Beyond the first 2 years from diagnosis, in the absence of a specialist led follow-up, women prefer to have their routine breast cancer follow-up by a Breast Physician (or a Breast Cancer Nurse) in a dedicated local breast cancer clinic, rather than with their local General Practitioner. Drop-in clinics for the management of treatment related side effects and to provide advice to both develop and maintain good health are also highly valued by breast cancer survivors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is premised on the idea that the metaphors patients use in their efforts to articulate ‘good care’ can deepen our understanding of the limitations of particular patient–professional relations and help us imagine and justify new ones. Its intent is to extend critical scholarship about patient involvement, and professional disengagement, in contemporary healthcare contexts. The paper draws from a study that highlighted the range of ways women with cancer responded to the call to ‘take charge’ of treatment decision making and care co-ordination. The metaphors that are the focus of the paper—‘voting’ and ‘walking me there’—emerged from a patient's felt discomfort with specific care interactions. I show how these metaphors can be used to raise critical questions about the discourses of patient autonomy and choice that dominate Western cancer care contexts; sharpen our attention to practices of care that are obscured by prevailing discourses; and suggest alternative value frameworks for the knowledge, identities and practices enacted between health professionals and patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Little is known about the gynaecological health of lesbian and bisexual (LB) women.Objectives: To examine differences in incidence and/or prevalence of gynaecological conditions in LB compared with heterosexual women.Search Strategy: The systematic review protocol was prospectively registered (PROSPERO-CRD42015027091) and searches conducted in seven databases.Selection Criteria: Comparative studies published 2000-2015, reporting any benign (non-infectious) and/or malignant gynaecological conditions with no language or setting restrictions.Data Collection and Analysis: Inclusions, data extraction and quality assessment were conducted in duplicate. Meta-analyses of condition prevalence rates were conducted where ≥3 studies reported results.Main Results: From 567 records, 47 full papers were examined and 11 studies of mixed designs included. No studies directly addressing the question were found. Two chronic pelvic pain studies reported higher rates in bisexual compared with heterosexual women (38.5 versus 28.2% and 18.6 versus 6.4%). Meta-analyses showed no statistically significant differences in polycystic ovarian syndrome, endometriosis and fibroids. There was a higher rate of cervical cancer in bisexual than heterosexual women [odds ratio (OR) = 1.94; 95% CI 1.46-2.59] but no difference overall (OR = 0.76; 95% CI 0.15-3.92). There was a lower rate of uterine cancer in lesbian than heterosexual women (OR = 0.28; 95% CI 0.11-0.73) and overall (OR = 0.36; 95% CI 0.13-0.97), but no difference in bisexual women (OR = 0.43; 95% CI 0.06-3.07).Conclusions: More bisexual women may experience chronic pelvic pain and cervical cancer than heterosexual women. There is no information on potential confounders. Better evidence is required, preferably monitoring sexual orientation in research using the existing validated measure and fully reporting results.Tweetable Abstract: Lesbians have less uterine cancer than heterosexual women; bisexuals have more pelvic pain and cervical cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cervical cancer, which has been affecting women worldwide as the second most common cancer, can be cured if detected early and treated well. Routinely, expert pathologists visually examine histology slides for cervix tissue abnormality assessment. In previous research, we investigated an automated, localized, fusion-based approach for classifying squamous epithelium into Normal, CIN1, CIN2, and CIN3 grades of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) based on image analysis of 61 digitized histology images. This paper introduces novel acellular and atypical cell concentration features computed from vertical segment partitions of the epithelium region within digitized histology images to quantize the relative increase in nuclei numbers as the CIN grade increases. Based on the CIN grade assessments from two expert pathologists, image-based epithelium classification is investigated with voting fusion of vertical segments using support vector machine and linear discriminant analysis approaches. Leave-one-out is used for the training and testing for CIN classification, achieving an exact grade labeling accuracy as high as 88.5%. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Research undertaken with one's own community can be complex and demanding. It can also be valuable and fulfilling. Those who take on this challenge must often straddle variant roles, values, and perspectives with the potential for the strictures and structures of the academic community to be at odds with those of the partner community in research endeavours. These ‘double insiders’ can be valued for their bridging capacity and insight. However, they are also likely to be called upon to negotiate or mediate expectations, tensions, and differences between the research partners. This paper takes a new approach to a complex issue that is being increasingly discussed inside the academy by employing an autoethnographical approach to examine, holistically, this kind of researcher positioning. This paper brings together researchers from three very different community contexts – women with breast cancer, Records Continuum researchers and practitioners, and Indigenous Australian communities – each pursuing diverse research projects related to information technology and recordkeeping. The recounting of each researcher's story and the subsequent shared discussion of key issues that emerge from each story relating to research design, reflexivity, and reciprocity offer new insights and considerations for frameworks addressing community-based research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a region growing algorithm is presented for subsequent use in image segmentation and Region of Interest (ROI) extraction. Breast cancer is one of the leading causes of women's death in the world. Since the causes are unknown, breast cancer cannot be prevented. Microcalcifications (MCs) are the earliest signs of breast cancer and their detection is one of the most important research areas now. The problem in extracting the MCs alone starts from the presence of radio-opaque artifacts or labels. The presence of these labels makes automation of the MC extraction tougher. This paper presents a simple region growing technique to extract the breast region alone from the mammogram excluding the labels. The advantage of the proposed method is its simplicity when compared to the existing complicated models. Since it does not deal with the breast region, there is no loss of any vital data from the ROI. Many clinical mammograms were used to test the fidelity of this algorithm. The experiments suggest that the breast region is not only accurately extracted but also the computation time is much lesser as the algorithm is less complicated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ovarian cancer is the most common cause of death due to gynaecological cancers in developed countries. The symptoms of ovarian cancer are common female complaints, are non-specific and do not fit any easily recognisable pattern. This frequently leads to a delay in diagnosis. Until an effective screening test becomes available for this disease, increasing the education of women and clinicians regarding the symptoms of ovarian cancer must be seen as a priority. Nurses are ideally placed to disseminate information about the symptoms of ovarian cancer to the community and have a responsibility to do so. It is crucial that nurses are aware of the common symptoms and the usual diagnostic pathway in order to provide empathetic, informed nursing care. This paper draws on the results of a narrative systematic review to describe current knowledge of symptoms of ovarian cancer and describes delays women commonly experience in obtaining a diagnosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A number of studies on cancer screening behaviour among women in Canada reveal that South Asian immigrant women are less likely than general population to have either a mammogram or a Pap smear. Many tend to focus on these women's beliefs and knowledge about and attitudes towards breast cancer, breast self-examination, mammogram, and/or cervical cancer and Pap smear. These beliefs and attitudes are believed to originate from and influenced by their culture and to prevent them from engaging in cancer detection practices. Thus for improved accessibility, most of these studies recommend culturally sensitive service delivery or awareness about minority cultures among health professionals. Culturally sensitive or cross-cultural care, informed and shaped by the state multicultural policy, is a popular approach to addressing the needs of ethnic minority peoples, or 'multicultural others' and managing ethnic or cultural diversity within the Canadian health care system. Drawing the antiracist critiques of multiculturalism in the area of South Asian women's use of cancer screening tests, this paper will argue that multicultural discourse has effectively moved the attention away from racism and other systemic barriers in Canadian society while attributing the problem of inequitable access primarily to the culture of these women. In the multicultural paradigm the structural and material differences or inequities among populations are reduced to the issue of ethnic and cultural diversity. The discourse of diversity overlooks power differences explaining them in merely cultural terms that construct culture along with ethnicity and community pre-given, static, and independent of social, historical, economic and structural forces. This paper will also emphasize the importance of antiracist and postcolonial feminist scholarship in understanding South Asian women's experience of health inequities and underutilization of cancer screening services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We have systematically reviewed the literature focusing on the performance of surveillance programmes and imaging techniques for the early diagnosis of breast and ovarian cancer in women carrying mutations in BRCA1/2 genes. A search for relevant articles published between 1996 and 2005 (inclusive) was run on Medline, Embase and other databases. Of the 749 articles retrieved, only 13 met the inclusion criteria. Of these, 12 provided information on breast cancer surveillance, 1 on ovarian cancer surveillance and a further study addressed both cancer types. A critical appraisal of the studies was performed using a tool for the quality assessment of diagnostic accuracy studies (QUADAS). The synthesis of results is qualitative. All studies on imaging techniques for the diagnosis of breast cancer indicated that screening MRI had the highest sensitivity (between 77% and 100%). Breast cancer surveillance programmes, including MRI, achieved the highest diagnostic performance (between 83% and 95%) for all women. However, it must be taken into account that biases that may affect the validity of the outcomes were seen in the evaluated studies. Also, MRI is an expensive test with a low positive predictive value and, to date, MRI screening has not been proven to reduce mortality rates in women carrying BRCA1/2 gene mutations. As a result of the scant information and low quality of the papers reviewed, no definitive conclusion could be drawn on the performance of ovarian cancer surveillance in women carrying BRCA1/2 mutations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent months, genetic testing for the breast and ovarian cancer genes, BRCA1 and BRCA2, has again hit the headlines in the UK press. Four women, all from families with a strong breast cancer pedigree, have asked the Human Fertility and Embryology Authority for permission to screen their embryos for BRCA1/2 mutations. Although this may be a dramatic example of parental responsibility, other studies have shown that women at risk of BRCA-related cancers frequently cite responsibility to others as an important influence on their testing and treatment decision making. In this paper, I explore the decision-making explanations that women at risk of BRCA-related breast and ovarian cancer provide when accounting for their decision to undergo genetic testing. In doing so, I treat women's accounts critically, and examine how and why the women verbalize their explanations in the manner that they do. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]