Communication about sexuality and intimacy in couples affected by lung cancer and their clinical-care providers.

Objective: Little is known about the effects of lung cancer on intimate and sexual relationships. This study explores health-care provider, patient, and partner perspectives on: (1) the effects of lung cancer on physical and emotional intimacy, (2) the ways in which intimacy affects the experience of living with lung cancer, and (3) communication about intimacy and sexuality in the context of lung cancer.

Methods: Qualitative, in-depth interviews with eight cancer-care providers and 13 married couples (ages 43-79) affected by lung cancer were conducted and audiotaped in the clinical setting.

Prevalence of high-risk human papillomavirus among older women.

Objective: To estimate the prevalence, genotypes, and individual-level correlates of high-risk human papillomavirus (HPV) among women aged 57-85.

Methods: Community-residing women (N=1,550), aged 57-85, were drawn from a nationally representative probability sample. In-home interviews and biomeasures, including a self-collected vaginal specimen, were obtained between 2005 and 2006.

Paxillin is a target for somatic mutations in lung cancer: implications for cell growth and invasion.

Lung cancer is characterized by abnormal cell growth and invasion, and the actin cytoskeleton plays a major role in these processes. The focal adhesion protein paxillin is a target of a number of oncogenes involved in key signal transduction and important in cell motility and migration. In lung cancer tissues, we have found that paxillin was highly expressed (compared with normal lung), amplified (12.

The role of ephrins and Eph receptors in cancer.

Eph receptors are the largest receptor tyrosine kinase family of transmembrane proteins with an extracellular domain capable of recognizing signals from the cells' environment and influencing cell-cell interaction and cell migration. Ephrins are the ligands to Eph receptors and stimulate bi-directional signaling of the Eph/ephrin axis. Eph receptor and ephrin overexpression can result in tumorigenesis as related to tumor growth and survival and is associated with angiogenesis and metastasis in many types of human cancer.