Peter Boyle

• International Prevention Research Institute

In a population-based case control study of testicular germ cell tumors (TGCT), we reported a strong positive association between serum levels of Wolff's Group 1 (potentially estrogenic) polychlorinated biphenyl (PCBs) and risk of TGCT, and the observed associations were similar for both seminoma and non-seminoma. While the observed specific associ...

The incidence rate of testicular germ cell tumors (TGCT) has continuously increased in Western countries over the last several decades. Some epidemiologic studies have reported that the endocrine disrupting polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in serum may be associated with TGCT risk, but the evidence is inconsistent. Our goal was to investigate wheth...

Background: We previously observed a rapid increase in the incidence of renal cell carcinoma (RCC) in men and women between 1935 and 1989 in the USA, using data from the Connecticut Tumor Registry. This increase appeared to be largely explained by a positive cohort effect, but no population-based study has been conducted to comprehensively examine...

In order to estimate a registration model of eye fundus images made of an affinity and two radial distortions, we introduce an estimation criterion based on an error between the vessels. In [1], we estimated this model by minimising the error between characteristics points. In this paper, the detected vessels are selected using the circle and ellip...

Purpose Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) and Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) from the clandestine intelligence sector are being increasingly employed in infectious disease outbreaks. The purpose of this article is to explore how such tools might be employed in the detection, reporting, and control of outbreaks designated as a ‘threat’ by the global c...

The conflict environment in Libya is characterized by continued pervasive insecurity amidst the widespread availability of small arms and light weapons (SALW). After the First Civil War, armed brigades took the law into their own hands and the resulting violence terminated a short-lived post-conflict period that has relapsed into a Second Civil War...

Some observational studies have suggested that women with diabetes may be at increased risk of breast cancer. Blood levels of fasting glucose (FG) and of glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) are major diagnostic tools for diabetes. The aim of this study was to investigate the association between HbA1c, FG and breast cancer occurrence. A systematic literatur...

The CPRD has been collecting medical data among UK patients since 1987. Many studies on the risk of cancer associated with prescription of antidiabetic drugs have used the CRPD database. The objective was to compare methods and results of studies on the same exposure and outcome combination based on the CPRD.A systematic Pubmed search of articles o...

Some observational studies have suggested an increased risk of breast cancer (BC) among diabetic patients. A meta-analysis was performed to assess the risk of BC in diabetic patients compared to nondiabetic patients. Studies were selected if they had a prospective design. Studies that compared BC incidence in women with diabetes to the incidence in...

The objective of this study was to compare the risks of breast cancer in women treated with insulin glargine and NPH using claims data. The MarketScan and Clinformatics databases were used to identify patients prescribed glargine or NPH in the study periods of January 2007 to March 2016 and July 20to June 2016, respectively. The risks of breast can...

Observational studies have linked higher serum concentrations of 25(OH)D with a reduced risk of diabetes. In order to assess the effect of vitaminD supplementation (VDS) on glucose metabolism biomarkers, a systematic review with meta-analysis of randomized-controlled trials (RCTs) was undertaken. RCTs published until February 2017 conducted in adul...

Observational studies on the association between prescription of long acting insulin analogues (glargine and detemir) and the risk of breast cancer (BC) report conflicting results. We performed a meta-analysis of prospective studies on the risk of breast cancer among diabetic patients exposed to long acting insulin analogues following PRISMA guidel...

Some observational studies have suggested an association between insulin therapy and cancer risk. Using a meta-analytical approach, the risk of breast cancer in diabetic patients treated with insulin was compared to the risk in diabetic patients treated with a non-insulin therapy (NIT). A systematic literature search was conducted in the PubMed dat...

Objective: Concerns have been raised about a possible increased risk of pancreatic cancer associated with incretin-based therapies. We examined the risk of pancreatic cancer among patients with diabetes prescribed incretin drugs. Research design and methods: With the use of public health insurance databases of Belgium and Lombardy Region, Italy,...

Background: In prospective studies, sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB) have been associated with weight increase. However, most prospective studies examine changes in body weight over time according to amounts of SSB intake at baseline, generally without considering changes over time in SSB, energy intake and physical activity. The objective of the p...

AimsA systematic review was conducted of randomized trials which evaluated the impact of physical activity on the change in fasting glucose and HbA1c. MethodsA literature search was conducted in PubMed until December 2015. Studies reporting glucose or HbA1c at baseline and at the end of study were included, and the change and its variance were esti...

Background: : Occupational exposures in the rubber manufacturing industry showed an increased risk of cancer and have been classified as a group 1 carcinogen, largely from studies on workers employed before 1950s. Cancer sites considered as causally associated are bladder, lung and stomach, and leukaemia. Recent studies did not report an increased...

In this paper, a method is presented for superimposition (i.e. registration) of eye fundus images from persons with diabetes screened over many years for diabetic retinopathy. The method is fully automatic and robust to camera changes and colour variations across the images both in space and time. All the stages of the process are designed for long...

In this paper, a method is presented for superimposition (i.e. registration) of eye fundus images from persons with diabetes screened over many years for diabetic retinopathy. The method is fully automatic and robust to camera changes and colour variations across the images both in space and time. All the stages of the process are designed for long...

Many eye fundus images present strong variations of contrast which can be a limitation to the diagnosis of the retinopathy. Either some lesions are not taken into account or only a limited part of the domain of the image can be read. Graders have to manually adjust the contrast, which is tedious and not easily reproducible. We have developed an aut...

4126 Background: Concerns have been raised on the risk of pancreatic cancer associated with specific anti-diabetic therapies. We have examined the risk of pancreatic cancer among patients with diabetes prescribed with an oral anti-diabetic drug (OAD) or an incretin drug (DPP4i and GLP-1 RA) or insulin. Methods: The public health insurance databases...

Background: Explosive remnants of war (ERW)—landmines, unexploded ordnance (UXO), and abandoned explosive ordnance (AXO)—have been recognised as a threat to health since the 1990s. We aimed to study the effect of ERW on global public health. Methods: In this systematic mixed-studies review, we searched the Web of Science, Scopus, PubMed, and ProQue...

Background: Since the 1990s, important changes in the detection and management of breast cancer have taken place. We analysed breast cancer mortality trends from 1989 to 2012 in 47 countries with data available for most years since 1987. Methods: Breast cancer deaths and populations were extracted from the WHO mortality database. Age-standardised m...

Objectives: Increased cancer risks have been reported among workers in the rubber manufacturing industry employed before the 1960s, but it is unclear for workers hired subsequently. The present study focused on cancer incidence among rubber workers first employed after 1975 in Sweden and the UK. Methods: Two cohorts of rubber workers employed fo...

Afghanistan is one of the most fragile and conflict-affected countries in the world. It has experienced almost uninterrupted conflict for the last thirty years, with the present conflict now lasting over a decade. With no history of a functioning healthcare system, the creation of the Basic Package of Health Services (BPHS) in 2003 was a response t...

Breast and cervical cancer are major threats to the health of women globally, particularly in low-income and middle-income countries. Radical progress to close the global cancer divide for women requires not only evidence-based policy making, but also broad multisectoral collaboration that capitalises on recent progress in the associated domains of...

Since the launch of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) in 1988 the global incidence of poliomyelitis has fallen by nearly 99 %. From a situation where wild type poliovirus was endemic in 125 countries across five continents, transmission is now limited to regions of just three countries – Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria. A sharp incre...

In this review we illustrate our view on the epidemiological relevance of geographically mapping cancer mortality. In the first part of this work, after delineating the history of cancer mapping with a view on interpretation of Cancer Mortality Atlases, we briefly illustrate the ‘art’ of cancer mapping. Later we summarise in a non-mathematical way...

Background: The role of breast screening in breast cancer mortality declines is debated. Screening impacts cancer mortality through decreasing the number of advanced cancers with poor diagnosis, while cancer treatment works through decreasing the case-fatality rate. Hence, reductions in cancer death rates thanks to screening should directly reflec...

Predicted numbers of breast cancer deaths in the two-County trial reported in Tabar et al, Cancer, 1995, table 6. * Data in italicized letters were not reported table 6 of Tabar et al, 1995.[1]. † Includes invasive and in situ cancers. (DOCX)

Checklist of items that should be included in reports of observational studies. (DOC)

Reported invasive breast cancer patients and deaths in the HIP trial. BC: breast cancer. *Data from Table 9 of Shapiro et al, 1977 [1]. (DOCX)

In their study on mortality, diabetes mellitus, and cancer, Singh et al1 concluded that worldwide >180 000 deaths could be attributed to sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) consumption. To calculate the attributable deaths, data were derived from prospective cohort studies that examined associations between SSB intake and risks of premature death. Such...

Introduction: Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer years of life lost and is associated with the highest economic burden relative to other tumour types. Research remains at the cornerstone of achieving improved outcomes from lung cancer. We present the results of a comprehensive analysis of global lung cancer research between 2004 and 2013 (...

Delayed fetal growth and adverse birth outcomes are some of the greatest public health threats to this generation of children worldwide because these conditions are major determinants of mortality, morbidity, and disability in infancy and childhood and are also associated with diseases in adult life. A number of studies have investigated the impact...

Background: Increased cancer risk has been reported among workers in the rubber manufacturing industry employed before the 1960s. It is unclear whether risk remains increased among workers hired subsequently. The present study focused on risk of cancer mortality for rubber workers first employed since 1975 in 64 factories. Patients and methods:...

Objective: To review and quantify the association between endogenous and exogenous testosterone and prostate specific antigen (PSA) and prostate cancer. Methods: Literature searches were performed following the PRISMA guidelines. Prospective cohort studies that reported data on the associations between endogenous testosterone and prostate cancer...

Background: Lower risk of breast cancer has been reported among physically active women, but the risk in women using hormone replacement therapy (HRT) appears to be higher. We quantified the association between physical activity and breast cancer, and we examined the influence that HRT use and other risk factors had on this association. Methods:...

A significant number of digital eye fundus images have strong contrast variations which can be a limiting factor for the diagnosis of the diabetic retinopathy lesions. Currently, to address this problem, graders have to manually adjust the image contrast which is person dependent and therefore not easily reproducible. Images may still be considered...

Studies on active and passive tobacco smoking and breast cancer have found inconsistent results. A meta-analysis of observational studies on tobacco smoking and breast cancer occurrence was conducted based on systematic searches for studies with retrospective (case–control) and prospective (cohort) designs. Eligible studies were identified, and rel...

Autier, Philippe Boniol, Mathieu Smans, Michel Sullivan, Richard Boyle, Peter eng Editorial England 2015/11/27 06:00 J R Soc Med. 2015 Nov;108(11):431-2. doi: 10.1177/0141076815616314.

We compared calculations of relative risks of cancer death in Swedish mammography trials and in other cancer screening trials. Men and women from 30 to 74 years of age. Randomised trials on cancer screening. For each trial, we identified the intervention period, when screening was offered to screening groups and not to control groups, and the post-...

To investigate variations in prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels among men with an initial normal PSA level in the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian Cancer Screening Trial study. Data were extracted from the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian Cancer Screening Trial study data set on all men in the interventional arm, with 2 tests perf...

Background: No analytic epidemiological study has examined the relationship between use of muscle-building supplements (MBSs) and testicular germ cell cancer (TGCC) risk. Methods: We conducted a population-based case-control study including 356 TGCC cases and 513 controls from Connecticut and Massachusetts. Results: The odds ratio (OR) for eve...

Abstract (n=197) Breast cancer is the commonest form of cancer in women worldwide. It has been suggested that chronic hyperinsulinemia associated with insulin resistance plays a role in breast cancer etiology. To test the hyperinsulinemia hypothesis, a dietary pattern associated with a high glycemic index and glycemic load, both proxies for chronic...

According to the Global Burden of Disease, trauma is now responsible for five million deaths each year. High-income countries have made great strides in reducing trauma-related mortality figures but low-middle-income countries have been left behind with high trauma-related fatality rates, primarily in the younger population. Much of the progress hi...

Purpose: Genetic polymorphisms in DNA repair genes and hair dye use may both have a role in the development of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL). We aimed to examine the interaction between variants in DNA repair genes and hair dye use with risk of NHL in a population-based case-control study of Connecticut women. Methods: We examined 24 single nucleot...

Although the global burden of cancer is not known with precision, it is certain that it has doubled over the last 25 years and is set to double again before 2030. This period has also witnessed unprecedented advances in knowledge of Oncology from understanding causes, both lifestyle and biological, to the enormous progress in developing effective t...

We investigated the incidence trends for adenocarcinoma (AC) of the cervix among individuals belonging to the 20-44-year age group in the USA and compared the observed birth cohort incidence patterns with the changing patterns of exposure to potential risk factors associated with AC of the cervix, such as infection with human papillomavirus, use of...

Objectives: Hodgkin's lymphoma (HL) is one of the most common cancers among young adults. We investigated the time trends for HL among the 20-44 age group in the USA by gender to identify the potential factors accounting for the incidence trends. Methods: Using data from the National Cancer Institute's Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results...

There is speculation on an association between sweetened, carbonated beverage consumption and cancer risk. This study aimed to examine this issue. Over 50 independent estimates of risk were available, 11 for colas specifically. A random-effects meta-analysis was carried out with tests for publication bias performed as well as Higgins and Thompson's...

Careful quantitative assessment of data regarding use of mouthwash and risk of common oral conditions reveals that there is a clear evidence of benefi t from use in terms of reducing the risk of dental plaque, gingivitis, dental caries and that there are no major adverse effects including no evidence of an increased risk of oral cancer among users o...

Further signal stratification for the EarlyCDT®-Lung test should facilitate interpretation of the test, leading to more precise interventions for particular patients. Samples were measured for the presence of autoantibodies to seven tumor-associated antigens (TAAs) (p53, NY-ESO-1, CAGE, GBU4-5, SOX2, MAGE A4, and HuD). In addition to the current te...

Purpose Genetic polymorphisms in one-carbon metabolizing pathway genes have been associated with risk of malignant lymphoma. However, the results have been inconsistent. The objectives of this study were to examine the potential relationship between gene–nutrient interactions and the risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL). Methods We examined 25 pol...

We conducted a population-based case-control study in Connecticut women to test the hypothesis that genetic variations in DNA repair pathway genes may modify the relationship between body mass index (BMI) and risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL). Compared to those with BMI < 25, women with BMI ≥ 25 had significantly increased risk of NHL among women...

Impaired function of Janus kinase/signal transducer and activator of transcription (JAK/STAT) signaling pathway genes leads to immunodeficiency and various hematopoietic disorders. We evaluated the association between genetic polymorphisms (SNPs) in 12 JAK/STAT pathway genes (JAK3, STAT1, STAT2, STAT3, STAT4, STAT5a, STAT5b, STAT6, SCOS1, SCOS2, SC...

e12548 Background: There is speculation of possible links between sweetened carbonated beverage consumption and the risk of developing cancer. The aim of this study was to examine the association between sweetened, carbonated beverage consumption and cancer risk. Methods: PRISMA guidelines of meta-analyses were followed as closely as possible. Over...

e12507 Background: Diabetes and Breast Cancer are common conditions in women and there have been various links proposed between the two conditions. Methods: To clarify the potential association between diabetes, related factors, treatments and breast cancer risk, a series of meta-analyses were carried out following PRISMA guidelines. Results: For b...

1519 Background: Twenty years ago, recommendations for prevention of breast cancer by dietary modification were based on decreased fat consumption, and increased consumption of dietary fibre, fruits, vegetables and vitamins. Subsequent literature is replete with reports of studies of diet and nutrition often containing widely varying advice for wom...

5022 Background: With the widespread use of PSA testing for prostate cancer screening in population, more prostate biopsy are being performed and seem set to increase in number. The safety of this diagnostic procedure needs to be ascertained. Only one study evaluated the mortality following prostate biopsy (Gallina et al, Int J Cancer 2008;123:647-...

Background: Chemokines play a pivotal role in immune regulation and response, and previous studies suggest an association between immune deficiency and non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL). Methods: We evaluated the association between NHL and polymorphisms in 18 genes (CCL1, CCL2, CCL5, CCL7, CCL8, CCL11, CCL13, CCL18, CCL20, CCL24, CCL26, CCR1, CCR3, CC...

Objectives: There is evidence indicating that the trends in colorectal cancer (CRC) incidence rates in the United States differ according to CRC subsites, including for ascending cancer which has shown a different pattern from the overall trends. We investigated the time trends for ascending and descending colon cancer in the United States by race...

Objectives: To assess the ability of mouthwash preparations containing chlorhexidine (CHX), essential oils (EO), delmopinol (DEL), cetylpyridinium (CPC) or triclosan (TRI) to reduce the extent and severity of dental plaque and gingivitis assessed using standard scoring methods. Methods: A systematic literature search of randomized controlled tria...

Purpose of review: This review intends to present some epidemiological findings regarding the epidemiology of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma not related to alcohol or tobacco (HNSCCNAT). Recent findings: Twenty-five percent of squamous cell carcinomas of head and neck are not related to tobacco or alcohol consumption. The risk factors for...