Acceptability and Adherence in a Chemoprevention Trial among Women at Increased Risk for Breast Cancer Attending the Modena Familial Breast and Ovarian Cancer Center (Italy)

Chemoprevention for women at risk for breast cancer has been shown to be effective, but in actual practice, women's uptake of chemoprevention has been poor. We explored factors that influence acceptability, adherence, and dropout in the International Breast (Prevention) Intervention Study during our first 3 years of activity at the Modena Familial Breast and Ovarian Cancer Center. We evaluated socio-demographic characteristics, health status, adherence, and side effect intensity. Semi-structured interviews analyzed reasons for accepting/refusing/stopping the trial. A total of 471 postmenopausal women were invited to participate, of which 319 declined to participate (68%), 137 accepted to participate (29%), and 15 participants did not make a final decision (3%). Breast cancer-related worries and trust in our preventive and surveillance programs were the most frequent reasons for accepting. Side effect-related worry was the most frequent reason for refusing. General practitioners' and family members' opinions played an important role in the decision-making process. Adherence significantly decreased after a 12-month follow-up, but it remained unchanged after 24- and 36-month follow-ups. Mild/moderate side effects reported by women did not change after 12 months of treatment. Forty percent of women withdrew from the study due to complaints of side effects. We concluded that chemoprevention trials are difficult medical experiments and that the process of deciding about whether or not to participate is based mainly on beliefs and values. This study has important clinical implications. During counselling with prospective participants, it is important to emphasize the potential benefits and to promote an informed choice. How participants make decisions, their belief systems, and their perception of risk are all factors that should be investigated in future research

Development and Validation of an Italian Adaptation of the Psychosocial Aspects of Hereditary Cancer Questionnaire

Individuals that attend cancer genetic counseling may experience test-related psychosocial problems that deserve clinical attention. In order to provide a reliable and valid first-line screening tool for these issues, Eijzenga and coworkers developed the Psychosocial Aspects of Hereditary Cancer (PAHC) questionnaire. The aim of this work was to develop an Italian adaptation of the PAHC (I-PACH). This prospective multicenter observational study included three stages: (1) development of a provisional version of the I-PAHC; (2) pilot studies aimed at testing item readability and revising the questionnaire; and (3) a main study aimed at testing the reliability and validity of the final version of the I-PAHC with the administration of a battery comprising measures of depression, anxiety, worry, stress, and life problems to 271 counselees from four cancer genetic clinics. Adapting the original PAHC to the Italian context involved adding two further domains and expanding the emotions domain to include positive emotions. While most of the items were found to be easy to understand and score, some required revision to improve comprehensibility; others were considered irrelevant or redundant and therefore deleted. The final version showed adequate reliability and validity. The I-PAHC provides comprehensive content coverage of cancer genetic-specific psychosocial problems, is well accepted by counselees, and can be considered a sound assessment tool for psychosocial issues related to cancer genetic counseling and risk assessment in Italy

The impact of reproductive life on breast cancer risk in women with family history or BRCA mutation

Reproductive history and exogenous hormonal exposures are acknowledged risk factors for breast cancer in the general population. In women at increased breast cancer risk for genetic predisposition or positive family history, data regarding these risk factors are limited or con icting, and recommendations for these categories are unclear. We evaluated the characteristics of reproductive life in 2522 women at increased genetic or familial breast cancer risk attending our Family Cancer Center. Breast cancers in BRCA mutation carriers were more likely to be hormone receptor negative, diagnosed at 35 years or before and multiple during the lifetime than tumors in women at increased familial risk, while the distribution of invasive cancers and HER2 positive tumors was similar in the different risk groups. At least one full- term pregnancy (HR 0.27; 95% CI 0.12\u20130.58; p = 0.001), breastfeeding either less (HR 0.24; 95% CI 0.09\u20130.66; p = 0.005) or more (HR 0.25; 95% IC 0.08\u20130.82; p = 0.022) than one year and late age at menopause (HR 0.10; 95% CI 0.01\u20130.82; p = 0.033) showed to be protective factors in BRCA mutation carriers, while in women at increased familial risk early age at rst full-term pregnancy (HR 0.62; 95% IC 0.38\u20130.99; p = 0.048) and late menarche (HR 0.61; 95% CI 0.42\u20130.85; p = 0.004) showed to be the main protective factors. Finally, for the entire population, combined hormonal contraceptives demonstrated to do not increase breast cancer risk. The results of our study suggest that women at high familial risk and mutation carries develop tumors with different clinical-pathological characteristics and, consequently, are in uenced by different protective and risk factors

Ovarian cancer: can proteomics give new insights for therapy and diagnosis?

The study of the ovarian proteomic profile represents a new frontier in ovarian cancer research, since this approach is able to enlighten the wide variety of post-translational events (such as glycosylation and phosphorylation). Due to the possibility of analyzing thousands of proteins, which could be simultaneously altered, comparative proteomics represent a promising model of possible biomarker discovery for ovarian cancer detection and monitoring. Moreover, defining signaling pathways in ovarian cancer cells through proteomic analysis offers the opportunity to design novel drugs and to optimize the use of molecularly targeted agents against crucial and biologically active pathways. Proteomic techniques provide more information about different histological types of ovarian cancer, cell growth and progression, genes related to tumor microenvironment and specific molecular targets predictive of response to chemotherapy than sequencing or microarrays. Estimates of specificity with proteomics are less consistent, but suggest a new role for combinations of biomarkers in early ovarian cancer diagnosis, such as the OVA1 test. Finally, the definition of the proteomic profiles in ovarian cancer would be accurate and effective in identifying which pathways are differentially altered, defining the most effective therapeutic regimen and eventually improving health outcomes

Biophotons: new experimental data and analysis

Article describes how biophotons are an ultra-weak emission of photons in the visible energy range from living matter. The authors study the emission from germinating seeds using an experimental technique designed to detect light of extremely small intensity

Biophotons: a hard problem

About a hundred years ago, the Russian biologist A. Gurwitsch, based on experiments with onion plants by measuring their growth rate, hypothesized that plants emit a weak electromagnetic field that somehow influences cell growth. This interesting observation remained fundamentally ignored by the scientific community; only in the 1950s the electromagnetic emission from some plants was measured using a photomultiplier used in single counting mode. Later, in the 1980s, several groups around the world started extensive work to understand the origin and role of this ultraweak emission, now called biophotons, coming from living organisms. Biophotons are an endogenous very small production of photons in the visible energy range in and from cells and organisms, and this emission is characteristic of living organisms. Today, there is no doubt that biophotons exist, this emission has been measured by many groups and for many different living organisms, from humans to bacteria. However, the origin of biophotons and whether organisms use them to exchange information is not yet well understood; no model proposed to date is capable of reproducing and interpreting the great variety of experimental data coming from the many different living systems measured so far. In this brief review, we present our experimental work on the biophotons coming from germinating seeds, the main experimental results, and some new methods we are using to analyze the data to open the door for interpretative models of this phenomenon clarifying its function in the regulation and communication between cells and living organisms. We also discuss ideas on how to increase the signal-to-noise ratio of the measured signal to open up new experimental possibilities that allow the measurement and the characterization of currently unmeasurable quantities

Atmosphere(s) for Architects: Between Phenomenology and Cognition

Interfaces 5 was born to home the dialogue that the neuroscientist Michael A. Arbib and the philosopher Tonino Griffero started at the end of 2021 about atmospheric experiences, striving to bridge the gap between cognitive science’s perspective and the (neo)phenomenological one. This conversation progressed due to Pato Paez’s offer to participate in the webinar “Architectural Atmospheres: Phenomenology, Cognition, and Feeling,” a roundtable hosted by The Commission Project (TCP) within the Applied Neuroaesthetics initiative. The event ran online on May 20, 2022. Bob Condia moderated the panel discussion between Suchi Reddy, Michael A. Arbib, and Tonino Griffero. The RESONANCES project was responsible for developing the editing and publishing process. This volume collects nine essays: the main chapter is “A Dialogue on Affordances, Atmospheres, and Architecture” by Michael A. Arbib and Tonino Griffero; there are four commentaries to this text by Federico De Matteis, Robert Lamb Hart, Mark Alan Hewitt, and Suchi Reddy; Michael A. Arbib and Tonino Griffero have independently responded to the commentaries, emphasizing the opportunities and challenges of their respective approaches: cog/neuroscience and atmospherology applied to architecture; Elisabetta Canepa offers “An Essential Vocabulary of Atmospheric Architecture,” developing an atmospherological critique of the Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art on the Kansas State University campus to evaluate the accuracy, coherence, and adaptability of her lexicon. Bob Condia and Mikaela Wynne provide an introduction entitled “On Becoming an Atmospherologist: A Praxis of Atmospheres.”https://newprairiepress.org/ebooks/1051/thumbnail.jp

Hereditary pancreatic cancer: A retrospective single-center study of 5143 Italian families with history of BRCA-related malignancies

The identification of BRCA mutations plays a crucial role in the management of hereditary cancer prevention and treatment. Nonetheless, BRCA-testing in pancreatic cancer (PC) patients is not universally introduced in clinical practice. A retrospective analysis was conducted, firstly, to evaluate the rate of BRCA-positive families among those presenting a family history of PC besides breast and/or ovarian cancer. Secondly, the relationship between BRCA pathogenic variants and PC risk was evaluated. Finally, the characteristics of PC developed in BRCA families were described. Among 5143 family trees reporting breast and/or ovarian cancer cases, 392 showed a family history of PC. A total of 35 families (24.5% selected by the Modena Criteria and 21.3% by the NCCN Criteria) were positive to BRCA testing. Among the BRCA1 mutations, 36.8% were found within a region defined by c.3239\u2013c.3917, whilst 43.7% of BRCA2 mutations were located within c.7180\u2013c.8248. This study confirmed that an increase in the rate of positive tests in families with PC when associated to breast and/or ovarian tumors. Moreover, this analysis indicated two possible Pancreatic Cancer Cluster Regions that should be verified in future research. Finally, PC in families with breast and/or ovarian cancer history, particularly in BRCA families, were diagnosed at younger age and showed better one-year overall survival

Atmosphere(s) for Architects: Between Phenomenology and Cognition

Interfaces 5 was born to home the dialogue that the neuroscientist Michael A. Arbib and the philosopher Tonino Griffero started at the end of 2021 about atmospheric experiences, striving to bridge the gap between cognitive science’s perspective and the (neo)phenomenological one. This conversation progressed due to Pato Paez’s offer to participate in the webinar “Architectural Atmospheres: Phenomenology, Cognition, and Feeling,” a roundtable hosted by The Commission Project (TCP) within the Applied Neuroaesthetics initiative. The event ran online on May 20, 2022. Bob Condia moderated the panel discussion between Suchi Reddy, Michael A. Arbib, and Tonino Griffero. This volume collects nine essays: the target chapter is “A Dialogue on Affordances, Atmospheres, and Architecture” by Michael A. Arbib and Tonino Griffero; there are four commentaries to this text by Federico De Matteis, Robert Lamb Hart, Mark Alan Hewitt, and Suchi Reddy; Michael A. Arbib and Tonino Griffero have independently responded to the commentaries, emphasizing the opportunities and challenges of their respective approaches: cog/neuroscience and atmospherology applied to architecture; Elisabetta Canepa offers “An Essential Vocabulary of Atmospheric Architecture,” developing an atmospherological critique of the Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art on the Kansas State University campus in Manhattan to evaluate the accuracy, coherence, and adaptability of her lexicon. Bob Condia and Mikaela Wynne provide an introduction entitled “On Becoming an Atmospherologist: A Praxis of Atmospheres.

Biophotons and emergence of quantum coherence : a diffusion entropy analysis

We study the emission of photons from germinating seeds using an experimental technique designed to detect light of extremely small intensity. We analyze the dark count signal without germinating seeds as well as the photon emission during the germination process. The technique of analysis adopted here, called diffusion entropy analysis (DEA) and originally designed to measure the temporal complexity of astrophysical, sociological and physiological processes, rests on Kolmogorov complexity. The updated version of DEA used in this paper is designed to determine if the signal complexity is generated either by non-ergodic crucial events with a non-stationary correlation function or by the infinite memory of a stationary but non-integrable correlation function or by a mixture of both processes. We find that dark count yields the ordinary scaling, thereby showing that no complexity of either kinds may occur without any seeds in the chamber. In the presence of seeds in the chamber anomalous scaling emerges, reminiscent of that found in neuro-physiological processes. However, this is a mixture of both processes and with the progress of germination the non-ergodic component tends to vanish and complexity becomes dominated by the stationary infinite memory. We illustrate some conjectures ranging from stress induced annihilation of crucial events to the emergence of quantum coherence