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Discusses the use of paan, a combination that usually includes calcium hydroxide, areca nut, and betel leaf which produces a pharmacologically addicting stimulant, in south Asia, Southeast Asia and the South Pacific. Link between paan and oral cancer, including hepatocellular carcinoma; Study which found an association between chewing paan and liver cancer, and that paan chewers with hepatitis B were at greater risk; Paan usage in Taiwan; Conclusion that paan-control programs should be given high priority. more...

Background:Adolescent/young adult Hodgkin lymphoma (AYAHL) survivors report fewer exposures to infections during childhood compared with controls, and they have functional lymphocyte aberrations. The gut microbiota plays a central role in immunity.Methods:We investigated whether fecal microbial diversity differed between 13 AYAHL survivors and their unaffected co-twin controls. Pyrosequencing of fecal bacterial 16S rRNA amplicons yielded 252 943 edited reads that were assigned to species-level operational taxonomic units (OTUs) and standardised for sequencing depth by random sampling. Microbial diversity was compared within vs between twin pairs and by case-control status.Results:The number of unique OTUs was more similar within twin pairs compared with randomly paired participants (P=0.0004). The AYAHL cases had fewer unique OTUs compared with their co-twin controls (338 vs 369, P=0.015); this difference was not significant (169 vs 183, P=0.10) when restricted to abundant OTUs.Conclusion:In this small study, AYAHL survivors appear to have a deficit of rare gut microbes. Further work is needed to determine if reduced microbial diversity is a consequence of the disease, its treatment, or a particularly hygienic environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

Lymphangiosarcoma of the upper extremity is a rare and aggressive tumour reported to occur following post-mastectomy lymphoedema (Stewart-Treves syndrome). Haemangiosarcoma, a related rare tumour, has occasionally been reported to occur in the breast following irradiation. We conducted a case-control study using the University of Southern California-Cancer Surveillance Program, the population-based cancer registry for Los Angeles County, to evaluate the relationship between invasive female breast cancer and subsequent upper extremity or chest lymphangiosarcoma and haemangiosarcoma together referred to as angiosarcoma. Cases were females diagnosed between 1972 and 1995 with angiosarcoma of the upper extremity (n = 20) or chest (n = 48) who were 25 years of age or older and residing in Los Angeles County when diagnosed. Other sarcomas at the same anatomic sites were also studied. Controls were females diagnosed with cancers other than sarcoma during the same time period (n = 266,444). Cases and controls were then compared with respect to history of a prior invasive epithelial breast cancer. A history of breast cancer increased the risk of upper extremity angiosarcoma by more than 59-fold (odds ratio [OR] = 59.3, 95% confidence interval [95% CI] = 21.9-152.8). A strong increase in risk after breast cancer was also observed for angiosarcoma of the chest and breast (OR = 11.6, 95% CI = 4.3-26.1) and for other sarcomas of the chest and breast (OR = 3.3, 95% CI = 1.1-1.7). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...