Prevalence and Factors Associated with Parvovirus B19 Infection among Blood Donors: A Hospital‑Based Study in South‑West, Nigeria

Background: Parvovirus B19 (B19V) is a transfusion transmissible infection that can result in severe consequences in vulnerable population that includes pregnant women, immunocompromised and chronic hemolytic anemia patients. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence and factors associated with B19V infection amongst blood donors in South–West Nigeria. Materials and Methods: We conducted a comparative cross‑sectional study to determine the seroprevalence of B19V immunoglobulin M (IgM) antibody among 183 blood donors at the blood bank of a tertiary hospital. The results were analyzed with SPSS 23 software, prevalence and associated factors were determined using frequencies and logistic regression, respectively. Results: The prevalence of B19V IgM was 7.1% (95% confidence interval: 4–11) with a higher prevalence among male donors compared to females (84.6% vs. 15.4%, P = 0.54). There was a statistically significant difference in the seropositivity of B19V IgM amongst the ethnic groups with the Yoruba ethnic group having a higher proportion of B19V IgM‑positive participants P = 0.04. Ethnicity, gender, and steady employment were also associated with increased odds of infection, while increasing age appeared to be protective; though none of these factors were statistically significant. Conclusion: This study has shown that there is still high exposure to transfusion transmissible B19V infection. Keywords: Blood donor, parvovirus immunoglobulin M antibody, sickle cell anaemi

Prognostic performance of pretreatment systemic immune-inflammation index in women with epithelial ovarian cancer

Purpose: This study investigated the prognostic performance of the systemic immune-inflammation index (SII) in patients with epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) in Lagos, Nigeria. Methods: We performed a secondary analysis of the data of 91 women who had treatment for EOC between 2009 and 2018. The associations between pretreatment SII and survivals were tested. Results: Pretreatment SII more than 610.2 was a significant independent predictor of reduced progression-free survival (HR = 2.68; 95% CI, 1.17 to 6.09) while SII greater than 649.0 was a significant independent predictor of reduced 3-year overall survival (HR = 2.01; 95% CI, 1.01 to 3.99). Conclusion: These findings suggest that high SII may be a potential prognostic indicator and useful marker for more intensive surveillance and design of personalized treatment in patients with EOC

Impact of Mobile Technologies on Cervical Cancer Screening Practices in Lagos, Nigeria (mHealth-Cervix): A Randomized Controlled Trial

Purpose We assessed the impact of mHealth on Pap test screening uptake and also determined the factors that affect screening uptake among women in Lagos, Nigeria. Materials and Methods A randomized controlled trial was carried out among women in two tertiary health institutions in Lagos, Nigeria, between July 2020 and March 2021. Participants were randomly assigned to either a text message (mHealth) intervention or usual care arm. The main study outcome was the uptake of Pap smear testing within 6 months of enrollment in the study. We tested the associations between two groups of continuous variables using the unpooled independent-sample t-test (normal distribution) and that of two groups of categorical variables with the chi-square (χ2) test. Using a multinomial logistic regression model, we adjusted for relevant sociodemographic and clinical predictors of uptake of Pap smear screening. Statistical significance was defined as P < .05. Results There was a significantly higher rate of uptake of Pap smear screening among women in the mHealth arm compared with those in the usual care arm (51.0% v 35.7%, P = .031). Following adjustment in the final multivariate model, level of income (odds ratio [OR] = 5.13, 95% CI, 1.55 to 16.95), awareness of Pap smear (OR = 16.26; 95% CI, 2.49 to 76.64), General Outpatient clinic attendance, and introduction of mHealth intervention during follow-up (OR = 4.36; 95% CI, 1.44 to 13.22) were the independent predictors of Pap smear uptake. Conclusion The use of mHealth technologies intervention via short-text message services is a feasible solution for cervical cancer prevention in low- and middle-income countries, and thus, the widespread use of mHealth services by health care providers and policymakers could contribute to the implementation of cervical cancer prevention services in Nigeria and in the settings of other low- and middle-income countries

Pan-Cancer Analysis of lncRNA Regulation Supports Their Targeting of Cancer Genes in Each Tumor Context

Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are commonly dys-regulated in tumors, but only a handful are known toplay pathophysiological roles in cancer. We inferredlncRNAs that dysregulate cancer pathways, onco-genes, and tumor suppressors (cancer genes) bymodeling their effects on the activity of transcriptionfactors, RNA-binding proteins, and microRNAs in5,185 TCGA tumors and 1,019 ENCODE assays.Our predictions included hundreds of candidateonco- and tumor-suppressor lncRNAs (cancerlncRNAs) whose somatic alterations account for thedysregulation of dozens of cancer genes and path-ways in each of 14 tumor contexts. To demonstrateproof of concept, we showed that perturbations tar-geting OIP5-AS1 (an inferred tumor suppressor) andTUG1 and WT1-AS (inferred onco-lncRNAs) dysre-gulated cancer genes and altered proliferation ofbreast and gynecologic cancer cells. Our analysis in-dicates that, although most lncRNAs are dysregu-lated in a tumor-specific manner, some, includingOIP5-AS1, TUG1, NEAT1, MEG3, and TSIX, synergis-tically dysregulate cancer pathways in multiple tumorcontexts

Genomic, Pathway Network, and Immunologic Features Distinguishing Squamous Carcinomas

This integrated, multiplatform PanCancer Atlas study co-mapped and identified distinguishing molecular features of squamous cell carcinomas (SCCs) from five sites associated with smokin

Spatial Organization and Molecular Correlation of Tumor-Infiltrating Lymphocytes Using Deep Learning on Pathology Images

Beyond sample curation and basic pathologic characterization, the digitized H&E-stained images of TCGA samples remain underutilized. To highlight this resource, we present mappings of tumorinfiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) based on H&E images from 13 TCGA tumor types. These TIL maps are derived through computational staining using a convolutional neural network trained to classify patches of images. Affinity propagation revealed local spatial structure in TIL patterns and correlation with overall survival. TIL map structural patterns were grouped using standard histopathological parameters. These patterns are enriched in particular T cell subpopulations derived from molecular measures. TIL densities and spatial structure were differentially enriched among tumor types, immune subtypes, and tumor molecular subtypes, implying that spatial infiltrate state could reflect particular tumor cell aberration states. Obtaining spatial lymphocytic patterns linked to the rich genomic characterization of TCGA samples demonstrates one use for the TCGA image archives with insights into the tumor-immune microenvironment

Pan-cancer Alterations of the MYC Oncogene and Its Proximal Network across the Cancer Genome Atlas

Although theMYConcogene has been implicated incancer, a systematic assessment of alterations ofMYC, related transcription factors, and co-regulatoryproteins, forming the proximal MYC network (PMN),across human cancers is lacking. Using computa-tional approaches, we define genomic and proteo-mic features associated with MYC and the PMNacross the 33 cancers of The Cancer Genome Atlas.Pan-cancer, 28% of all samples had at least one ofthe MYC paralogs amplified. In contrast, the MYCantagonists MGA and MNT were the most frequentlymutated or deleted members, proposing a roleas tumor suppressors.MYCalterations were mutu-ally exclusive withPIK3CA,PTEN,APC,orBRAFalterations, suggesting that MYC is a distinct onco-genic driver. Expression analysis revealed MYC-associated pathways in tumor subtypes, such asimmune response and growth factor signaling; chro-matin, translation, and DNA replication/repair wereconserved pan-cancer. This analysis reveals insightsinto MYC biology and is a reference for biomarkersand therapeutics for cancers with alterations ofMYC or the PMN

Characterizing Prostate Cancer Risk Through Multi-Ancestry Genome-Wide Discovery of 187 Novel Risk Variants

The transferability and clinical value of genetic risk scores (GRSs) across populations remain limited due to an imbalance in genetic studies across ancestrally diverse populations. Here we conducted a multi-ancestry genome-wide association study of 156,319 prostate cancer cases and 788,443 controls of European, African, Asian and Hispanic men, reflecting a 57% increase in the number of non-European cases over previous prostate cancer genome-wide association studies. We identified 187 novel risk variants for prostate cancer, increasing the total number of risk variants to 451. An externally replicated multi-ancestry GRS was associated with risk that ranged from 1.8 (per standard deviation) in African ancestry men to 2.2 in European ancestry men. The GRS was associated with a greater risk of aggressive versus non-aggressive disease in men of African ancestry (P = 0.03). Our study presents novel prostate cancer susceptibility loci and a GRS with effective risk stratification across ancestry groups

Integrated Genomic Analysis of the Ubiquitin Pathway across Cancer Types

Protein ubiquitination is a dynamic and reversibleprocess of adding single ubiquitin molecules orvarious ubiquitin chains to target proteins. Here,using multidimensional omic data of 9,125 tumorsamples across 33 cancer types from The CancerGenome Atlas, we perform comprehensive molecu-lar characterization of 929 ubiquitin-related genesand 95 deubiquitinase genes. Among them, we sys-tematically identify top somatic driver candidates,including mutatedFBXW7with cancer-type-specificpatterns and amplifiedMDM2showing a mutuallyexclusive pattern withBRAFmutations. Ubiquitinpathway genes tend to be upregulated in cancermediated by diverse mechanisms. By integratingpan-cancer multiomic data, we identify a group oftumor samples that exhibit worse prognosis. Thesesamples are consistently associated with the upre-gulation of cell-cycle and DNA repair pathways, char-acterized by mutatedTP53,MYC/TERTamplifica-tion, andAPC/PTENdeletion. Our analysishighlights the importance of the ubiquitin pathwayin cancer development and lays a foundation fordeveloping relevant therapeutic strategies