Article
Cardiac & Cardiovascular Systems
Dong D. Wang, Yanping Li, Shilpa N. Bhupathiraju, Bernard A. Rosner, Qi Sun, Edward L. Giovannucci, Eric B. Rimm, JoAnn E. Manson, Walter C. Willett, Meir J. Stampfer, Frank B. Hu
Summary: The study found that consuming approximately 5 servings of fruits and vegetables per day was associated with lower total mortality and mortality from cancer, cardiovascular disease, and respiratory disease. Higher intake beyond this level did not provide additional risk reduction.
Article
Psychiatry
Siiri-Liisi Kraav, Soili M. Lehto, Jussi Kauhanen, Sari Hantunen, Tommi Tolmunen
Summary: Loneliness and social isolation are associated with cancer incidence, even after adjusting for health-related factors. However, social isolation does not have a significant connection to specific types of cancer, while loneliness is linked to lung cancer incidence.
PSYCHIATRY RESEARCH
(2021)
Article
Public, Environmental & Occupational Health
Sangjun Lee, Jieun Jang, Sarah Krull Abe, Shafiur Rahman, Eiko Saito, Rashedul Islam, Prakash C. Gupta, Norie Sawada, Akiko Tamakoshi, Xiao-Ou Shu, Woon-Puay Koh, Atsuko Sadakane, Ichiro Tsuji, Jeongseon Kim, Isao Oze, Chisato Nagata, San-Lin You, Myung-Hee Shin, Mangesh S. Pednekar, Shoichiro Tsugane, Hui Cai, Jian-Min Yuan, Wanqing Wen, Kotaro Ozasa, Sanae Matsuyama, Seiki Kanemura, Aesun Shin, Hidemi Ito, Keiko Wada, Yumi Sugawara, Chien-Jen Chen, Yoon-Ok Ahn, Yu Chen, Habibul Ahsan, Paolo Boffetta, Kee Seng Chia, Keitaro Matsuo, You-Lin Qiao, Nathaniel Rothman, Wei Zheng, Manami Inoue, Daehee Kang, Sue K. Park
Summary: This study found a wide J-shaped association between body mass index (BMI) and esophageal cancer (OC) mortality among Asians, with underweight and extreme obesity increasing the risk of OC mortality. Additionally, smoking and alcohol consumption synergistically increased the OC mortality risk in underweight individuals.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF EPIDEMIOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Cell Biology
YuPeng Liu, Shu Zhao, YuXue Zhang, Justina Ucheojor Onwuka, QingYuan Zhang, XiaoDong Liu
Summary: The study provides solid evidence for a significant beneficial effect of bisphosphonates on breast cancer survival, which can persist for at least 1-2 years after treatment completion.
Review
Medicine, General & Internal
Hongmei Zeng, Chen Yuan, Jakub Morze, Ruiying Fu, Kai Wang, Liang Wang, Feng Sun, John S. Ji, Edward L. Giovannucci, Mingyang Song
Summary: Limited data suggest that patients with colorectal cancer (CRC) are at increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes (T2D). This prospective study examined the risk of T2D among individuals with and without CRC in three large cohorts and conducted a meta-analysis. The findings showed that individuals with CRC were more likely to develop T2D compared to those without CRC. The meta-analysis also demonstrated a higher risk of T2D associated with CRC. The association between CRC and T2D was most significant in the first ten years after CRC diagnosis.
Article
Oncology
Pietro Gino Barbieri, Dario Consonni, Anna Somigliana
Summary: The study found no significant relationship between asbestos lung burden and survival, with histologic subtype being the strongest prognostic determinant.
JOURNAL OF THORACIC ONCOLOGY
(2022)
Review
Medicine, General & Internal
Jing Yang, Hang Yang, Ling Cao, Yuzhen Yin, Ying Shen, Wei Zhu
Summary: Metformin has potential benefits for the survival and progression-free survival of cancer patients, especially in breast cancer, and also showed potential benefits in cancer-specific survival in colorectal and prostate cancer.
Article
Oncology
Meesun Lee, Yunseo Lee, Doeun Jang, Aesun Shin
Summary: The study involving 43,596 colorectal cancer patients found that high levels of physical activity post-cancer diagnosis were associated with a reduced risk of death, especially in those who underwent surgery. This highlights the importance of physical activity in colorectal cancer patients and suggests it may be a prognostic factor, particularly in early-stage patients undergoing surgery.
Review
Oncology
Nicolo Pecorelli, Alice W. Licinio, Giovanni Guarneri, Francesca Aleotti, Stefano Crippa, Michele Reni, Massimo Falconi, Gianpaolo Balzano
Summary: High-quality data for PDAC patients undergoing upfront surgery is scarce. Meta-analysis from the included studies showed a significantly shorter OS and DFS compared to recently published studies focusing on adjuvant combination chemotherapy, suggesting that the latter may overestimate survival due to the exclusion of most patients scheduled for upfront surgery.
FRONTIERS IN ONCOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Drew R. Van Orden
Summary: Two analytical studies have derived a discriminant function to differentiate asbestiform amphibole minerals, particularly fibers longer than 10 μm, emphasizing the importance of accurately identifying materials containing these minerals.
ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH
(2023)
Article
Oncology
Se Young Choi, Moon Soo Ha, Byung Hoon Chi, Jin Wook Kim, In Ho Chang, Tae-Hyoung Kim, Soon Chul Myung, Myoungsuk Kim, Kyung-Eun Lee, Yuwon Kim, Hyun-Ki Woo, Dae-Sung Kyoung, Hasung Kim
Summary: This study compared the perioperative outcomes, overall survival, and treatment trends in patients with bladder cancer who underwent radical cystectomy and received either neoadjuvant or adjuvant chemotherapy. The findings suggest that neoadjuvant chemotherapy is associated with better overall survival and lower administration of granulocyte colony-stimulating factor when compared to adjuvant chemotherapy. Therefore, neoadjuvant chemotherapy should be considered as a treatment option for bladder cancer patients undergoing radical cystectomy.
JOURNAL OF CANCER RESEARCH AND CLINICAL ONCOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Radiology, Nuclear Medicine & Medical Imaging
I Thomassin-Naggara, M. Belghitti, A. Milon, C. Abdel Wahab, E. Sadowski, A. G. Rockall
Summary: The main causes of categorization errors using O-RADS-MRI score were anatomical errors and misinterpretation of solid tissue.
EUROPEAN RADIOLOGY
(2021)
Review
Pharmacology & Pharmacy
Xiaofeng Luo, Xi Chen, Lin Wang, Bowen Yang, Shuang Cai
Summary: The combination of metformin and antineoplastic agents showed significant improvement in overall survival and progression-free survival outcomes in lung cancer patients, especially in non-diabetic patients. However, further investigation is needed to confirm these findings, as limited data from randomized controlled trials showed no differences in survival outcomes.
FRONTIERS IN PHARMACOLOGY
(2021)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Zhimin Ma, Chen Zhu, Hui Wang, Mengmeng Ji, Yanqian Huang, Xiaoxia Wei, Jing Zhang, Yuzhuo Wang, Rong Yin, Juncheng Dai, Lin Xu, Hongxia Ma, Zhibin Hu, Guangfu Jin, Meng Zhu, Hongbing Shen
Summary: Chronological age only represents the passage of time, whereas biological age reflects the physiology states and the susceptibility to morbidity and mortality. The association between biological age and lung cancer risk remains controversial. Our study conducted a prospective analysis and Mendelian randomization analysis to investigate this association in the UK Biobank study. We found that PhenoAgeAccel is an independent risk factor for lung cancer and can be used in combination with polygenic risk score to identify high-risk individuals.
Article
Oncology
Urgena Maharjan, Joonas H. Kauppila
Summary: This study evaluated the survival trends of gastric cancer in Finland from 1987-2016 and found that the 5-year survival is declining in non-cardia adenocarcinoma but improving in all gastric cancers.
Editorial Material
Health Care Sciences & Services
Mengli Xiao, Yong Chen, Stephen R. Cole, Richard F. MacLehose, David B. Richardson, Haitao Chu
Summary: Studies in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews have shown that study-specific OR tends to be higher in studies with lower baseline risks and there is a strong negative correlation between OR (RR or RD) and baseline risk, with conditional effects notably varying with baseline risks.
JOURNAL OF CLINICAL EPIDEMIOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Health Care Sciences & Services
Mengli Xiao, Haitao Chu, Stephen R. Cole, Yong Chen, Richard F. MacLehose, David B. Richardson, Sander Greenland
Summary: The argument to replace risk ratios with odds ratios is based on faulty reasoning and has important errors. The portability of odds ratios and risk ratios varies across settings.
JOURNAL OF CLINICAL EPIDEMIOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Health Care Sciences & Services
Lifeng Lin, Chang Xu, Haitao Chu
Summary: The study compared the real-world performance of various meta-analysis methods for synthesizing proportions and found that different methods produced similar overall proportion estimates in most datasets, but one-step methods should be considered in the presence of small total event counts or sample sizes and very low or high event rates.
JOURNAL OF GENERAL INTERNAL MEDICINE
(2022)
Article
Public, Environmental & Occupational Health
Lianne Siegel, M. Hassan Murad, Richard D. Riley, Fateh Bazerbachi, Zhen Wang, Haitao Chu
Summary: The reference range is the interval in which a certain proportion of measurements from a healthy population is expected to fall. It can be estimated from a single study or a meta-analysis. Estimating the reference range in a meta-analysis requires considering both within-study and between-study variations.
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF EPIDEMIOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Biology
Qinshu Lian, Jing Zhang, James S. Hodges, Yong Chen, Haitao Chu
Summary: Meta-regression is widely used in systematic reviews to investigate sources of heterogeneity and the association of study-level covariates with treatment effectiveness. Existing methods have limitations in adjusting for post-randomization variables. Therefore, a Bayesian joint meta-regression approach is proposed to address this issue.
Article
Mathematical & Computational Biology
Yipeng Wang, Lifeng Lin, Christopher G. Thompson, Haitao Chu
Summary: Systematic reviews and meta-analyses are important tools for synthesizing evidence, but choosing between common-effect (CE) and random-effects (RE) models can be challenging due to their limitations. Penalization methods are introduced as a compromise between these two models to address the issue of heterogeneity in collected studies.
STATISTICS IN MEDICINE
(2022)
Review
Obstetrics & Gynecology
Lifeng Lin, Aiwen Xing, Haitao Chu, M. Hassan Murad, Chang Xu, Benjamin R. Baer, Martin T. Wells, Luis Sanchez-Ramos
Summary: Since 2014, the fragility index has been increasingly used to assess the robustness of clinical trial results. It aims to identify the smallest number of event changes that could affect initially statistically significant results. Despite concerns about its validity and usefulness, this article offers a comprehensive review of the fragility index's rationale, calculation, software, and interpretation, with a focus on its application in obstetrics and gynecology studies. In addition, worked examples are provided to demonstrate how the fragility index can be appropriately calculated and interpreted.
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF OBSTETRICS AND GYNECOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Health Care Sciences & Services
Bart Heeg, Andre Verhoek, Gabriel Tremblay, Ofir Harari, Mohsen Soltanifar, Haitao Chu, Satrajit Roychoudhury, Joseph C. Cappelleri
Summary: This study demonstrates that Bayesian hierarchical model-based network meta-analysis can address data immaturity issues and impact incremental mean life years and cost-effectiveness ratios, thereby influencing reimbursement decisions.
JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE EFFECTIVENESS RESEARCH
(2023)
Article
Mathematical & Computational Biology
Ziren Jiang, Wenhao Cao, Haitao Chu, Fateh Bazerbachi, Lianne Siegel
Summary: A reference interval is used to determine if a person's measurement is typical of a healthy individual. Combining data from multiple studies can provide a more generalizable reference interval. RIMeta is an R Shiny tool that allows users to estimate a reference interval from a meta-analysis using aggregate data and visualize the results.
RESEARCH SYNTHESIS METHODS
(2023)
Article
Mathematical & Computational Biology
Lianne Siegel, Haitao Chu
Summary: Reference intervals aid medical decision-making by containing a pre-specified proportion of measurements in a healthy population. Three approaches for estimating reference intervals from a meta-analysis have been proposed: frequentist, Bayesian, and empirical. The Bayesian approach provides a credible interval for the estimation uncertainty, but may result in wider intervals. In this update, a new Bayesian method is described to summarize the quantiles of the marginal distribution and construct a credible interval, which performs well in capturing values and maintaining coverage even with small studies or heterogeneity.
RESEARCH SYNTHESIS METHODS
(2023)
Article
Medicine, General & Internal
M. Hassan Murad, Zhen Wang, Ye Zhu, Samer Saadi, Haitao Chu, Lifeng Lin
Summary: Trading off benefits and harms requires knowledge of the absolute risk reduction or risk difference, making risk difference a critical measure for decision making. However, estimating risk difference is not straightforward and the available methods have various limitations. This article discusses four methods for estimating risk difference and provides recommendations on when to use each approach.
BMJ-BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL
(2023)
Article
Mathematical & Computational Biology
Zheng Wang, Thomas A. Murray, Mengli Xiao, Lifeng Lin, Demissie Alemayehu, Haitao Chu
Summary: In the absence of a gold standard, we propose a Bayesian hierarchical model for simultaneously estimating sensitivity, specificity, and disease prevalence. Compared to the pragmatic reference standard approach, this method provides a more accurate evaluation in a meta-analytic framework.
STATISTICS IN MEDICINE
(2023)
Article
Mathematical & Computational Biology
Kollin W. Rott, Gert Bronfort, Haitao Chu, Jared D. Huling, Brent Leininger, Mohammad Hassan Murad, Zhen Wang, James S. Hodges
Summary: Traditional meta-analysis methods do not explicitly consider the population to which the results apply or how to assess a treatment's effect for a population of interest. Recently-introduced causally interpretable meta-analysis methods address this issue by transporting treatment effects from studies to a specific target population using potential effect-modifying covariates. Comparisons with traditional methods suggest that causally interpretable methods perform slightly better when effect heterogeneity exists, while traditional methods work well when there is little effect heterogeneity. The causally interpretable approach provides a theoretical framework for meta-analysis and lays the foundation for future developments.
RESEARCH SYNTHESIS METHODS
(2023)
Article
Oncology
Jialing Liu, Chengxing Lu, Ziren Jiang, Demissie Alemayehu, Lei Nie, Haitao Chu
Summary: A platform trial is an efficient way to evaluate multiple interventions using an adaptive design and a single master protocol. There is ongoing debate on how to combine non-concurrent control and current control in the analysis. This paper proposes a new approach of borrowing non-concurrent control concurrent observation time (NCC COT) to enhance statistical inference in platform trials.
Review
Statistics & Probability
Haitao Chu, Lifeng Lin, Zheng Wang, Zilin Wang, Yong Chen, Joseph C. Cappelleri
Summary: Network meta-analysis (NMA) is a statistical procedure to compare multiple interventions simultaneously. Two commonly used NMA methods are contrast-based (CB-NMA) and arm-based (AB-NMA) models. CB-NMA assumes fixed intercepts and focuses on relative effects, while AB-NMA assumes random intercepts and offers flexibility on estimands, including both absolute and relative effects. This article reviews and elaborates on the assumptions, similarities, differences, advantages, and disadvantages between CB-NMA and AB-NMA methods, with a focus on a major criticism of AB-NMA regarding the retention of randomization within trials.
WILEY INTERDISCIPLINARY REVIEWS-COMPUTATIONAL STATISTICS
(2023)