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Breast cancer (BC) is a common cancer in women worldwide; however, the incidence of BC is increasing in younger women, possibly associated with the environment. Perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are one of endocrine disruptors that accumulate in environment and impact human health. This study aimed to investigate whether the PFAS and BC are associated. We enrolled 120 BCE patients and 119 controls at National Taiwan University Hospital (NTUH) and also collected bio-specimen and questionnaire from 2013 to 2015. All subjects' plasma PFAS levels were analyzed by ultra-performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry method with electrospray ionization (UHPLC-ESI-MS/MS). A logistic regression model was used to estimate the association between PFAS and BC. In the ≤50 years age group, the adjusted odds ratio (OR) was 2.34 (95% CI = 1.02, 5.38) for perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) exposure per natural log unit increase. After stratifying the estrogen receptor (ER) status and age group, we obtained a positive association for PFHxS and PFOS concentrations with respect to the risk of ER positive tumors for ≤50 years age group. In conclusion, we found that PFAS were associated with the BC risk of ER positive tumors in young Taiwanese women. Further studies are needed to follow and explore whether these associations are causal., (Copyright © 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

An association between human papillomavirus (HPV) and cervical neoplasia has been widely reported and HPV DNA is commonly detected in cervical carcinoma tissues. However, estimates of the prevalence of HPV infection differs among various detection methods. Seventy cases of cervical carcinoma were screened for HPV 16 infection by Southern blot hybridisation (SBH) and nested polymerase chain reaction (PCR). According to SBH, the prevalences of HPV 16 DNA in stage I (n = 40) and stage II (n = 30) cervical carcinomas were 52.5 and 63.3%, respectively, and the overall prevalence was 57.1% (40 of 70). By nested PCR, the prevalences of HPV 16 infection in stage I and II cervical carcinomas were 87.5 and 93.3%, respectively, and the overall prevalence was 90.3%. The prevalence of HPV DNA detected by nested PCR was significantly greater than that detected by SBH. The combined concordance of positive and negative results between SBH and nested PCR was 61.4%. The discrepancy resulted mainly from 25 cases (35.7%) that were positive by PCR but negative by SBH. A small copy number of HPV DNA in the these 25 cases was documented by a semi-quantitative PCR method. The nested PCR was more sensitive than SBH and detected cases with low amounts of HPV DNA. The detection of HPV infection varied between these two prevailing detection methods and this should be kept in mind in assessing various epidemiological data concerning HPV infection.