Overall survival analyses of female malignancies in Southern Brazil during 2008–2017: A closer look at breast, cervical and ovarian cancer

Background: The aim of this study was to report the overall survival and baseline factors associated with OS for breast, cervical and ovarian cancer in Florianópolis, Southern Brazil, a region with quality-of-life indicators comparable to high-income countries. Methods: Cohort study was performed from probabilistic record linkage of the Mortality Information System and the Population-based cancer registry of Florianópolis. It was included breasts, cervical and ovarian cancer diagnosis during the period of 2008–2012 with a follow up of 60 months. Cox regression and Kaplan-Meier method were used for associations with overall survival and risk factors. Findings: 1857 cases of the three malignancies were included in the analysis. We identified 202 deaths in breast cancer subjects, 53 for cervical cancer and 51 for ovarian cancer. Metastatic disease at diagnosis was present in 31%, 9.6%, and 55% of the cases, respectively. Overall survival was statistically correlated with age, educational level and stage for breast cancer; age and stage for cervical cancer; age and stage for ovarian cancer. Interpretation: Metastatic disease and age are the main prognostic factors for the malignancies studied, as they were associated with both overall survival and risk of death. Better screening and preventive tests for early diagnosis are needed. Funding: Support of Research and Innovation in the State of Santa Catarina, Research Program for the Unified Health System (FAPESC/MS-DECIT/CNPQ/SES-SC-PPSUS); the Brazilian National Research Council (CNPq); and the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES)

Genetic diversity in cultivated carioca common beans based on molecular marker analysis

A wide array of molecular markers has been used to investigate the genetic diversity among common bean species. However, the best combination of markers for studying such diversity among common bean cultivars has yet to be determined. Few reports have examined the genetic diversity of the carioca bean, commercially one of the most important common beans in Brazil. In this study, we examined the usefulness of two molecular marker systems (simple sequence repeats – SSRs and amplified fragment length polymorphisms – AFLPs) for assessing the genetic diversity of carioca beans. The amount of information provided by Roger’s modified genetic distance was used to analyze SSR data and Jaccards similarity coefficient was used for AFLP data. Seventy SSRs were polymorphic and 20 AFLP primer combinations produced 635 polymorphic bands. Molecular analysis showed that carioca genotypes were quite diverse. AFLPs revealed greater genetic differentiation and variation within the carioca genotypes (Gst = 98% and Fst = 0.83, respectively) than SSRs and provided better resolution for clustering the carioca genotypes. SSRs and AFLPs were both suitable for assessing the genetic diversity of Brazilian carioca genotypes since the number of markers used in each system provided a low coefficient of variation. However, fingerprint profiles were generated faster with AFLPs, making them a better choice for assessing genetic diversity in the carioca germplasm