A rare truncating BRCA2 variant and genetic susceptibility to upper aerodigestive tract cancer

© The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. For commercial re-use, please contact [email protected] Funding This work was supported the National Institutes of Health (R01CA092039 05/05S1) and the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (1R03DE020116). Notes The authors thank all of the participants who took part in this research and the funders and technical staff who made this study possible. We acknowledge and thank Simone Benhamou (INSERM, France) for sample contributions. We also acknowledge and thank The Cancer Genome Atlas initiative, whose data contributed heavily to this study.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Study protocol to explore the social effects of environmental exposure and lifestyle behaviours on pregnancy outcome: an overview of cohort of pregnant women study

International audienceIntroduction A growing number of international studies have highlighted the adverse consequences of lived experience in the first thousand days of pregnancy and early life on the probability of stillbirth, child mortality, inadequate growth and healthy development during both childhood and adulthood. The lived experience of the fetus inside the womb and at the birth is strongly related to both maternal health during pregnancy and maternal exposure to a set of environmental factors known as ‘exposome’ characteristics, which include environmental exposure, health behaviours, living conditions, neighbourhood characteristics and socioeconomic profile. The aim of our project is to explore the relationships between exposome characteristics and the health status of pregnant women and their newborns. We are particularly interested in studying the relationships between the social inequality of adverse pregnancy outcomes and (1) short-term exposure to atmospheric pollution (MobiFem project) and (2) pregnancy lifestyle (EnviFem project).Methods and analysis Ours is a prospective, observational and multisite cohort study of pregnant women, involving one teaching hospital across two sites in the Strasbourg metropolitan area.The research team at University Hospital of Strasbourg (HUS) Health collects data on outcomes and individual characteristics from pregnancy registries, clinical records data and questionnaires administered via email to study participants. Recruitment began in February 2021 and will be complete by December 2021. Participants are recruited from first trimester antenatal ultrasound examinations (conducted on weekdays across both sites); each woman meeting our inclusion criteria enters the cohort at the end of her first trimester. Study participants receive a total of three online questionnaires covering sociodemographic characteristics, travel behaviour patterns and lifestyle. Participants complete these questionnaires at recruitment, during the second and third trimester. The level of personal exposure to air pollution is characterised using a dynamic spatiotemporal trajectory model that describes the main daily movements of pregnant women and the time spent in each place frequented. Univariate, multilevel and Bayesian model will be used to investigate the relationships between exposome characteristics and the health status of pregnant women and their newborns

Pragmatic approach for risk assessment screening of products containing manufactured nanomaterials

International audienceDespite poor traceability, the various sources of information on the state of the market for consumer products containing manufactured nanomaterials (nanoproducts) agree that this market is highly diversified and evolving rapidly. Indeed these products, which are found in many areas of application, vary greatly even within a given sector of use. The research efforts undertaken have helped advance knowledge about the risks associated with the uses of these nanoproducts. However, in addition to still being faced with considerable gaps in knowledge in risk assessment, the dynamics of acquiring the required specific data compete directly with those of the evolution (manufacturing processes, characteristics, uses, etc.) of these nanoproducts on the market. In such a context, major uncertainties remain regarding the assessment of the risks associated with their use. To address these difficulties, several alternative approaches to risk assessment – specifically developed for nanomaterials – as well as tools intended to guide risk management in such a context of uncertainty, are currently being proposed by different organisations. On the basis of their analysis, Anses produced on 2015 a semi-quantitative approach based method for assessing health risk levels and ecotoxicological hazards associated with common consumer nanoproducts uses. One of the main improvements offered by this proposed assessment method stand in analysis of the relevance of the results : in order to extract information from alternative data sources when no others are available (for example, combining in vitro data with relevant physico-chemical information instead of in vivo data) while emphasising the uncertainty introduced by the use of such data, the results of the assessment are accompanied by a degree of relevance characterising the level of confidence that should be attributed to them. Therefore, the results obtained are interpreted in terms of combination of risk levels with associated degrees of relevance. The authors emphasise that this methodological work, which constitutes the first version of an assessment method to be improved, may be used to categorise nanoproduct-use combinations, with regard to the health risks and ecotoxicological hazards, in order to: • select those that should undergo in-depth risk assessments; • enable a comparison of different nanoproducts intended for a similar purpose; • guide the research efforts with a view to removing the most damaging uncertainties. This method should also provide substantial help to the various stakeholders involved, mainly by enabling them to: • identify the parameters to be studied and provided to the authorities for the risk assessment; • anticipate potential risks when designing nanoproducts; • estimate the potential risks associated with uses of nanoproducts already on the market and contribute to their prevention; • define the most suitable means of prevention to reduce the risks to the lowest level reasonably possible

Covid-19 Lockdown in Spring 2020 in France Provided Unexpected Opportunity to Assess Health Impacts of Falls in Air Pollution

International audienceLockdown measures to limit the spread of Covid-19 in France in spring 2020 sharply reduced activities and lowered air-pollution concentrations. This study sought to determine the short- and long-term impacts on mortality in metropolitan France resulting from the temporary decrease in the population's exposure to air pollution. The reduction in exposure to air pollution was estimated by calculating the difference between modeled exposure of the population during the strict lockdown and the gradual lifting, and the simulated exposure that would have been observed in the absence of lockdown. A quantitative health impact assessment was used to estimate both the short-term impact of PM 10 and NO 2 reductions, and the long-term impact of PM 2.5 and NO 2 reductions on mortality. Reduced activities during the lockdown lowered NO 2 and PM concentrations, resulting in about 2,300 deaths postponed for PM 2.5 and nearly 1,200 for NO 2 , mainly due to avoided long-term effects. This study shows that, even in an unprecedented context that is certainly neither realistic nor desirable to improve air quality in the long run, public interventions appear to have a significant impact on health through reductions in air-pollution levels. In a long-term perspective, the study also reminds us that the total burden of air pollution on health remains a significant risk factor in France. Efforts to reduce ambient air pollution must thus be pursued sustainably for all sources of air pollution with suitably adapted but ambitious policies. Finally, the lockdown restrictions had other consequences, both positive and negative, on the population's health. These consequences highlight the need to conduct more integrated assessments of health impacts that include the multisectoral consequences of interventions, particularly in terms of population compliance with mitigating restrictions, behavior and mental health and, more broadly, climate change