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Purpose: The aims of this case-control study were to assess the correlation between some food habits in the last two decades and gastric cancer in East Azerbaijan of Iran., Materials and Methods: In this hospital based case control study, 616 patients (212 gastric cancer patients, 404 cancer free patients) were recruited. Food habits of patients over the past two decades were assessed with a structured questionnaire. We used conditional logistic regression analysis for estimating crude and adjusted odds ratios (OR) and their respective 95% confidence intervals (95%CI)., Results: In this study, over-eating, consumption of high fat milk and yogurt and especial types of cheese increased the risk of gastric cancer (All<0.05). Consumption of such especial cheeses such as Koze and Khiki increased the risk of gastric cancer by 12.6 fold (95% CI:1.99-79.36) and 7.36 fold (95% CI:1.33- 40.54), respectively. In addition, high fat food, moldy food, and pickled vegetables consumption as well as reuse of cooking oil for frying were significantly associated with gastric cancer risk. Furthermore, intake of Ghorme (deep fried meat) was positively correlated with gastric cancer risk (OR:1.31;95%CI: 0.91-1.87)., Conclusions: It can be confirmed that particular food habits which have been very common in East-Azerbaijan in the last two past decades increase risk of gastric cancer. According to our results and taking into account the long latency period of gastric cancer it can be concluded that nutrition education for a healthy diet should be performed from early childhood. However, further well designed cohort studies are needed to achieve more clear results.

Background: Breast cancer is the most common female malignancy in the world. Beta glucan can be a hematopoietic and an immune modulator agent in cancer patients. The aim of this trial was to determine the effect of beta glucan on white blood cell counts and serum levels of IL-4 and IL-12 in women with breast cancer undergoing chemotherapy., Materials and Methods: This randomized double-blind placebo-controlled clinical trial was conducted on 30 women with breast carcinoma aged 28-65 years. The eligible participants were randomly assigned to intervention (n=15) or placebo (n=15) groups using a block randomization procedure with matching based on age, course of chemotherapy and menopause status. Patients in the intervention group received two 10-mg capsules of soluble 1-3, 1-6, D-beta glucan daily and the control group receiving placebo during 21 days, the interval between two courses of chemotherapy. White blood cells, neuthrophil, lymphocyte and monocyte counts as well as serum levels of IL-4 and IL-12 were measured at baseline and at the end of the study as primary outcomes of the study., Results: In both groups white blood cell counts decreased after 21 days of the intervention, however in the beta glucan group, WBC was less decreased non significantly than the placebo group. At the end of the study, the change in the serum level of IL-4 in the beta glucan group in comparison with the placebo group was statistically significant (p=0.001). The serum level of IL-12 in the beta glucan group statistically increased (p=0.03) and comparison between two groups at the end of the study was significant after adjusting for baseline values and covariates (p=0.007)., Conclusions: The findings suggest that beta glucan can be useful as a complementary or adjuvant therapy and immunomodulary agent in breast cancer patients in combination with cancer therapies, but further studies are needed for confirmation.

Background: With a background of disparities in colorectal cancer (CRC) incidences/mortality across countries due to differences in exposure to various prognostic factors, this study aimed to evaluate the site-specific pattern for the survival of colon and rectal patients., Methods: A total of 1,283 patients with CRC diagnosis according to the pathology report of cancer registry of RCGLD from 1 January 2002 to 1 October 2007, were entered into the study. Data were analyzed using univariate and multivariate competing risk survival analysis., Results: Survival proportion of patients showed a significant trend for 1, 3 and 5 year survival in colon cancer (P< 0.001) but this wasn't significant for rectal cancer (P=0.078). Tumor grade and pathologic stage were the most important factors predicting the survival in colon and rectal cancers with stronger hazard in the rectal site for grade and stronger hazard in the colon site for stage. For colon site, in the well and moderate categories of tumor grade, shifting from early to advance stage and also shifting in tumor grade from well and moderate categories to poor tumor grade had a considerable effect in hazard ratios. For rectum site, well to moderate shifting in tumor grade increased the hazard of death and shifting from early to advance stage increased the hazard equal to 2.54 and 4.36 times within the well and moderate tumor differentiation, respectively. In shifting to advance CRC, colon site had generally worse hazard than the rectum., Conclusion: Due to the worse conditions of CRC patients as shifting to advance cancer, to improve the effectiveness of treatment and hence the survival of Iranian patients, we should pay more attention to early detection, in particular by implementing population based screening programmes.

Background: Gastric cancer (GC) is one the most common causes of death worldwide. Despite the decreasing rate of GC in the world through recent years, it is still the most common cancer in men and the fourth in the general population in Iran. This study aimed to assess the survival of patients with GC and to determine prognostic factors., Materials and Methods: A total of 471 patients with GC were followed from 21 March 2003 to 21 March 2007 in the Cancer Institute of Imam Khomeini Hospital. The patients' survival rate was determined by periodical refers. The survival period considered as the time from diagnosis up to death or the end of the study. The effects of gender, age at diagnosis, tumor site, pathologic stage of disease, type of treatment used, and metastasis were evaluated by log-rank test in a univariate analysis. In addition, all the variables were evaluated simultaneously by the Cox proportional hazard (PH) model. Data were analyzed using SPSS 16 software., Results: 357 (75.8%) out of 471 patients were male and 153 cases (32.5%) experienced death. The mean and median ages at diagnosis were 58.5 and 60.7 years respectively. Also, the survival mean and median were 41.8 ( 3.1) and 27 (1.7) months respectively. Gender, type of treatment, pathologic stage, the degree of differentiation were significantly related to survival., Conclusions: There was a potential effective role of age at diagnosis, gender of patients and pathologic stage of disease in cancer therapy in this part of Iran. Therefore, to reduce the risk of death in patients with GC, early diagnosis of patients at a younger age and also in primary stages must be targeted.