Alcohol intake and invasive breast cancer risk by molecular subtype and race in the Carolina Breast Cancer Study

Alcohol is an established breast cancer risk factor, but there is little evidence on whether the association differs between African Americans and whites

Primary Tumor Radiomic Model for Identifying Extrahepatic Metastasis of Hepatocellular Carcinoma Based on Contrast Enhanced Computed Tomography

This study aimed to identify radiomic features of primary tumor and develop a model for indicating extrahepatic metastasis of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Contrast-enhanced computed tomographic (CT) images of 177 HCC cases, including 26 metastatic (MET) and 151 non-metastatic (non-MET), were retrospectively collected and analyzed. For each case, 851 radiomic features, which quantify shape, intensity, texture, and heterogeneity within the segmented volume of the largest HCC tumor in arterial phase, were extracted using Pyradiomics. The dataset was randomly split into training and test sets. Synthetic Minority Oversampling Technique (SMOTE) was performed to augment the training set to 145 MET and 145 non-MET cases. The test set consists of six MET and six non-MET cases. The external validation set is comprised of 20 MET and 25 non-MET cases collected from an independent clinical unit. Logistic regression and support vector machine (SVM) models were identified based on the features selected using the stepwise forward method while the deep convolution neural network, visual geometry group 16 (VGG16), was trained using CT images directly. Grey-level size zone matrix (GLSZM) features constitute four of eight selected predictors of metastasis due to their perceptiveness to the tumor heterogeneity. The radiomic logistic regression model yielded an area under receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC) of 0.944 on the test set and an AUROC of 0.744 on the external validation set. Logistic regression revealed no significant difference with SVM in the performance and outperformed VGG16 significantly. As extrahepatic metastasis workups, such as chest CT and bone scintigraphy, are standard but exhaustive, radiomic model facilitates a cost-effective method for stratifying HCC patients into eligibility groups of these workups

Alcohol intake and invasive breast cancer risk by molecular subtype and race in the Carolina Breast Cancer Study

PURPOSE: Alcohol is an established breast cancer risk factor, but there is little evidence on whether the association differs between African Americans and whites. METHODS: Invasive breast cancers (n=1,795; 1,014 white, 781 African American) and age- and race-matched controls (n= 1,558; 844 white, 714 African American) from the Carolina Breast Cancer Study (Phases I–II) were used to estimate odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for pre-diagnosis drinks per week and breast cancer risk. RESULTS: African American controls reported lower alcohol intake than white controls across all age groups. Light drinking (0-≤2 per week) was more prevalent among African American controls. Moderate to heavy drinking was more prevalent in white controls. African Americans who reported drinking >7 drinks per week had an elevated risk compared to light drinkers [adjusted OR, 95% CI: 1.62 (1.03–2.54)]. A weaker association was observed among whites [adjusted OR, 95% CI: 1.20 (0.87–1.67)]. The association of >7 drinks per week with estrogen receptor negative [adjusted OR, 95% CI: 2.17 (1.25–3.75)] and triple negative [adjusted OR, 95% CI: 2.12 (1.12–4.04)] breast cancers was significant for African American, but not white women. We observed significantly elevated ORs for heavy intake at ages less than 25 and greater than 50 years of age for African American women only. We found no evidence of statistical interaction between alcohol intake with oral contraceptive use or smoking. CONCLUSIONS: Drinking more than 7 alcoholic beverages per week increased invasive breast cancer risk among white and African American women, with significant increases only among African American women. Genetic or environmental factors that differ by race may mediate the alcohol-breast cancer risk association