Esophageal squamous cell carcinomas in a Malaysian cohort show a lack of association with human papillomavirus.

Objective: With an age-standardized incidence rate of 2 per 100 000, esophageal cancer is not common among Malaysians, but they are nevertheless important due to its poor prognosis. The study is to clarify whether the human papillomavirus (HPV) is associated with esophageal cancer in Malaysians as there has been no report to date on this in Malaysians and other South East Asians.

Methods: Altogether 67 esophageal squamous cell carcinomas histologically diagnosed between 1 January 2004 and 31 December 2014 at the Department of Pathology, University of Malaya Medical Center, Malaysia were considered for HPV analysis using two commercially available methods, polymerase chain reaction with flow-through hybridization (21 HPV GenoArray Diagnostic Kit) and multiplex real-time polymerase chain reaction (Anyplex II HPV28 Detection).

Scientific misconduct encountered by APAME journals: an online survey.

In June 2015, invitations were sent by email to 151 APAME journals to participate in an online survey with an objective of gaining insight into the common publication misconduct encountered by APAME editors. The survey, conducted through SurveyMonkey over a 20-day-period, comprised 10 questions with expansions to allow anecdotes limited to 400 characters, estimated to take less than 10 minutes to complete. Only one invitation was issued per journal, targeting (in order of priority) editors, editorial board members and editorial staff, and limited by email availability.