Publications by authors named "Fortner R"
Aims: Reproductive history conveys information about potential health risks later in adulthood. This study aimed to examine the validity of self-reported number of pregnancies and maternal age at first birth (AFB) among females attending BreastScreen Norway.
Methods: Participants were identified through the Janus Serum Bank cohort in Norway and were eligible for this cross-sectional validation study if they participated in a health survey issued by BreastScreen Norway between 2006 and 2015.
Background: Inflammation and immune dysregulation are hypothesized contributors to endometrial carcinogenesis; however, the precise underlying mechanisms remain unclear.
Methods: We measured pre-diagnostically 152 plasma protein biomarkers in 624 endometrial cancer case-control pairs nested within the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) cohort. Odds ratios (ORs) were estimated using conditional logistic regression, accounting for confounding and multiple comparisons.
Article Synopsis
- Effective strategies for early detection of epithelial ovarian cancer are currently insufficient; this study assessed a panel of 14 circulating microRNAs to differentiate between ovarian cancer cases diagnosed less than 2 years and those diagnosed 2-7 years after serum collection.
- The study involved 80 ovarian cancer cases and used the XGBoost algorithm to create a binary classification model, training it on 70% of the data and testing it on the remaining 30%.
- Results showed the microRNA panel performed well, with a median AUC of 0.771, and identified four specific miRNAs that were significantly upregulated closer to the diagnosis, indicating potential for robust early detection of ovarian cancer.
Purpose: The purpose of this study was to evaluate RB1 expression and survival across ovarian carcinoma histotypes and how co-occurrence of BRCA1 or BRCA2 (BRCA) alterations and RB1 loss influences survival in tubo-ovarian high-grade serous carcinoma (HGSC).
Experimental Design: RB1 protein expression was classified by immunohistochemistry in ovarian carcinomas of 7,436 patients from the Ovarian Tumor Tissue Analysis consortium. We examined RB1 expression and germline BRCA status in a subset of 1,134 HGSC, and related genotype to overall survival (OS), tumor-infiltrating CD8+ lymphocytes, and transcriptomic subtypes.
Background: It is important to monitor the association between menopausal hormone therapy (HT) use and breast cancer (BC) risk with contemporary estimates, and specifically focus on HT types and new drugs.
Methods: We estimated hazard ratios (HR) of BC risk according to HT type, administration route and individual drugs, overall and stratified by body mass index (BMI), molecular subtype and detection mode, with non-HT use as reference.
Results: We included 1,275,783 women, 45+ years, followed from 2004, for a median of 12.
Endometrial cancer (EC) is one of the most common female cancers and there is currently no routine screening strategy for early detection. An altered abundance of circulating microRNAs (miRNAs) and other RNA classes have the potential as early cancer biomarkers. We analyzed circulating RNA levels using small RNA sequencing, targeting RNAs in the size range of 17-47 nucleotides, in EC patients with samples collected prior to diagnosis compared to cancer-free controls.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTo identify credible causal risk variants (CCVs) associated with different histotypes of epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC), we performed genome-wide association analysis for 470,825 genotyped and 10,163,797 imputed SNPs in 25,981 EOC cases and 105,724 controls of European origin. We identified five histotype-specific EOC risk regions (p value <5 × 10) and confirmed previously reported associations for 27 risk regions. Conditional analyses identified an additional 11 signals independent of the primary signal at six risk regions (p value <10).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: Physical activity is associated with lower breast cancer risk, especially in postmenopausal women. Associations in premenopausal women are less well established.
Methods: We evaluated recreational physical activity and breast cancer risk in the Nurses' Health Study (NHS) and NHSII (187,278 women; n = 12,785 breast cancers; follow-up: NHS = 1986-2016, NHSII = 1989-2017) by menopausal status and estrogen (ER) and progesterone (PR) receptor status.
Background: Nineteen genomic regions have been associated with high-grade serous ovarian cancer (HGSOC). We used data from the Ovarian Cancer Association Consortium (OCAC), Consortium of Investigators of Modifiers of (CIMBA), UK Biobank (UKBB), and FinnGen to identify novel HGSOC susceptibility loci and develop polygenic scores (PGS).
Methods: We analyzed >22 million variants for 398,238 women.
Article Synopsis
- - This study analyzed the relationship between cholesterol precursors and oxysterols in 2,282 women with breast cancer, considering various factors like lifestyle, health conditions, and tumor characteristics.
- - Key findings showed that obesity was significantly linked to increased levels of specific sterols, while cardiovascular comorbidities influenced levels of certain sterols differently.
- - The research suggests that while cholesterol precursors are closely related to metabolic factors, oxysterols are more associated with the characteristics of breast cancer tumors, indicating a need for further investigation.
Achievement of Target Gain Larger than Unity in an Inertial Fusion Experiment.
Phys Rev Lett
February 2024
Article Synopsis
- * This experiment produced 2.05 MJ of laser energy, resulting in 3.1 MJ of total fusion yield, which exceeds the Lawson criterion for ignition, demonstrating a key milestone in fusion research.
- * The report details the advancements in target design, laser technology, and experimental methods that contributed to this historic achievement, validating over five decades of research in laboratory fusion.
Article Synopsis
- Researchers studied a common genetic change that happens in a type of ovarian cancer called high-grade serous carcinoma (HGSC), looking at how it affects patient survival.
- They found that losing the RB1 protein was linked to longer survival in patients with HGSC, but it was the opposite for a different type of ovarian cancer called endometrioid cancer.
- Patients with both RB1 loss and certain inherited genetic changes had much better survival rates compared to those with just one of these problems or none at all.
Article Synopsis
- Breast cancer is a major health issue for women globally, and this study investigates the relationship between circulating oxysterols (cholesterol derivatives) and mortality outcomes in breast cancer patients.
- The research involved measuring 13 types of oxysterols in 2,282 women over an 11-year period, aiming to find links between oxysterol levels and deaths specifically from breast cancer or cardiovascular diseases.
- While no significant links were found between oxysterols and breast cancer-related deaths, higher levels of some oxysterols did show an association with increased risk of cardiovascular disease mortality among participants.
Generally, risk stratification models for cancer use effect estimates from risk/protective factor analyses that have not assessed potential interactions between these exposures. We have developed a 4-criterion framework for assessing interactions that includes statistical, qualitative, biological, and practical approaches. We present the application of this framework in an ovarian cancer setting because this is an important step in developing more accurate risk stratification models.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: 27-hydroxycholesterol (HC) and 25-HC were identified as endogenous selective estrogen receptor modulators (SERMs) and estrogen receptor (ER) modulators, respectively. They are hypothesized to play a role in multiple physiologic processes and pathologies, including breast cancer development and progression.
Methods: We evaluated circulating 27-HC and 25-HC, and outcomes following a breast cancer diagnosis in 2282 women from the MARIE study over median follow-up of 11.
Contemporary population-based data on ovarian cancer survival using current subtype classifications and by surgical status are sparse. We evaluated 1-, 3-, 5- and 7-year relative (and overall) survival, and excess hazards in patients with borderline tumors or invasive epithelial ovarian cancer diagnosed 2012 to 2021 in a nationwide registry-based cohort in Norway. Outcomes were evaluated by histotype, FIGO stage, cytoreduction surgery and residual disease.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Sexually transmitted infections, specifically Chlamydia trachomatis (CT), may be associated with epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) risk. The association between CT and EOC subtypes is unclear. Our aim was to investigate whether history of CT and other infections (Mycoplasma genitalium [MG], herpes simplex virus type 2 [HSV-2], and human papillomavirus [HPV]) are associated with EOC risk by histotype.
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- This study investigates the role of osteoprotegerin (OPG) and TRAIL as biomarkers in breast cancer outcomes among 2459 patients from the MARIE study in Germany, focusing on their association with mortality and recurrence rates.
- Results indicate that higher OPG levels correlate with increased risks of all-cause mortality and recurrence, particularly in patients with ER-PR- tumors, but did not affect breast cancer-specific survival or show any significant results related to TRAIL.
- The findings suggest that OPG could serve as a potential biomarker for poor outcomes in ER- breast cancer, highlighting the need for further research to understand its mechanisms.
Evidence linking body fatness to breast cancer (BC) prognosis is limited. While it seems that excess adiposity is associated with poorer BC survival, there is uncertainty over whether weight changes reduce mortality. This study aimed to assess the association between body fatness and weight changes pre- and postdiagnosis and overall mortality and BC-specific mortality among BC survivors.
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- The study aimed to investigate the relationship between p53 protein expression and survival rates in women with different types of ovarian cancer, particularly high-grade serous carcinoma (HGSC), endometrioid carcinoma (EC), and clear cell carcinoma (CCC), using a large cohort from the Ovarian Tumor Tissue Analysis (OTTA) consortium.
- It was found that abnormal p53 expression patterns were prevalent in 93.4% of HGSC cases, but in EC and CCC, these abnormal patterns were linked to a significantly higher risk of death, indicating a poor prognosis.
- The research concluded that while abnormal p53 expression doesn't affect survival in HGSC, it serves as a strong independent prognostic marker for EC and CCC,
Background: The role of ovulation in epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) is supported by the consistent protective effects of parity and oral contraceptive use. Whether these factors protect through anovulation alone remains unclear. We explored the association between lifetime ovulatory years (LOY) and EOC.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Physical activity is generally associated with better outcomes following diagnosis; however, few studies have evaluated change in pre- to postdiagnosis activity and repeated measures of activity by intensity and type.
Methods: We evaluated physical activity and survival following a breast cancer diagnosis in the Nurses' Health Study and Nurses' Health Study II (n = 9308 women, n = 1973 deaths). Physical activity was evaluated as updated cumulative average of metabolic equivalent of task (MET)-h/wk (assigned per activity based on duration and intensity) and change in pre- to postdiagnosis activity.