Does Neighborhood Socioeconomic Status Alter Memory Change Associated with a Cancer Diagnosis? Preliminary Evidence from the US Health and Retirement Study.

Background: Neighborhood disadvantage has been linked to cognitive impairment, but little is known about the effect of neighborhood disadvantage on long-term cancer-related memory decline.

Methods: Incident cancer diagnosis and memory (immediate and delayed recall, combined with proxy-reported memory) were assessed at biennial interviews in the US Health and Retirement Study (N = 13,293, 1998-2016). Neighborhood disadvantage was measured using the National Neighborhood Data Archive disadvantage index, categorized into tertiles (T1: least disadvantaged-T3: most disadvantaged).

Breast cancers in monoallelic MUTYH germline mutation carriers have clinicopathological features overlapping with those in BRCA1 germline mutation carriers.

Purpose: Breast cancer patients referred to genetic counseling often undergo genetic testing with broad panels that include both breast cancer susceptibility genes as well as genes more specific for extramammary sites. As a result, patients are often incidentally found to have germline mutations in genes that are not necessarily related to breast cancer risk. One such gene is MUTYH.

Education, incident cancer, and rate of memory decline in a national sample of US adults in mid-to-later-life.

Introduction: Middle-aged and older adults who develop cancer experience memory loss following diagnosis, but memory decline in the years before and after cancer diagnosis is slower compared to their cancer-free counterparts. Educational attainment strongly predicts memory function during aging, but it is unclear whether education protects against memory loss related to cancer incidence or modifies long-term memory trajectories in middle-aged and older cancer survivors.

Materials And Methods: Data were from 14,449 adults (3,248 with incident cancer, excluding non-melanoma skin cancer) aged 50+ in the population-based US Health and Retirement Study from 1998 to 2016.

HER2-positive/ER-low breast carcinoma shows a response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy similar to that of HER2-positive/ER-negative breast carcinoma.

Negative expression of estrogen receptor (ER) predicts response to chemotherapy in breast cancers (BCs). ER negative cancers are those with less than 1 % of nuclear staining. Tumors with 1-10 % staining are sub-classified as "low-positive" (ER-low).

Functional aging trajectories of older cancer survivors: a latent growth analysis of the US Health and Retirement Study.

Purpose: We aimed to identify prototypical functional aging trajectories of US cancer survivors aged 50 and older, overall and stratified by sociodemographic and health-related characteristics.

Methods: Data were from 2986 survivors of a first incident cancer diagnosis (except non-melanoma skin cancer) after age 50 in the population representative U.S.

Does a Cancer Diagnosis in Mid-to-Later Life Modify Racial Disparities in Memory Aging?

Background: It is unknown whether an incident cancer diagnosis differentially impacts acute and long-term memory aging between older White and Black Americans.

Methods: Incident cancer diagnoses and memory (immediate and delayed recall, combined with proxy-reported memory) were assessed at biennial study interviews in the US Health and Retirement Study (N=14,235, 1998-2016). We used multivariable segmented linear mixed-effects models to evaluate the rate of change in standardized memory score (SD/decade) in the years before, acutely at the time of, and in the years following an incident cancer diagnosis, compared to cancer-free adults, by race.

Association Between Alzheimer Disease and Cancer With Evaluation of Study Biases: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.

Importance: Observational studies consistently report inverse associations between cancer and Alzheimer disease (AD). Shared inverse etiological mechanisms might explain this phenomenon, but a systematic evaluation of methodological biases in existing studies is needed.

Objectives: To systematically review and meta-analyze evidence on the association between cancer and subsequent AD, systematically identify potential methodological biases in studies, and estimate the influence of these biases on the estimated pooled association between cancer and AD.

The competing risk of death and selective survival cannot fully explain the inverse cancer-dementia association.

Introduction: We evaluated whether competing risk of death or selective survival could explain the reported inverse association between cancer history and dementia incidence (incidence rate ratio [IRR] ≈ 0.62-0.85).

The Association Between Cancer and Spousal Rate of Memory Decline: A Negative Control Study to Evaluate (Unmeasured) Social Confounding of the Cancer-memory Relationship.

Cancer diagnoses are associated with better long-term memory in older adults, possibly reflecting a range of social confounders that increase cancer risk but improve memory. We used spouse's memory as a negative control outcome to evaluate this possible confounding, since spouses share social characteristics and environments, and individuals' cancers are unlikely to cause better memory among their spouses. We estimated the association of an individual's incident cancer diagnosis (exposure) with their own (primary outcome) and their spouse's (negative control outcome) memory decline in 3601 couples from 1998 to 2014 in the Health and Retirement Study, using linear mixed-effects models.

Rate of Memory Change Before and After Cancer Diagnosis.

Importance: Patients with a history of cancer, even nonfatal cancers, have lower subsequent Alzheimer disease incidence. An inverse biological link between carcinogenesis and neurodegeneration has been hypothesized, although survival and detection biases are possible explanations.

Objective: To compare long-term memory trajectories before and after incident cancer with memory trajectories of similarly aged individuals not diagnosed with cancer.

Hyperhomocysteinemia and Risk of First Venous Thrombosis: The Influence of (Unmeasured) Confounding Factors.

Meta-analyses have reported a 2- to 3-fold increased risk of venous thrombosis (VT) in individuals with hyperhomocysteinemia. However, confounding factors were generally not considered. In contrast, randomized trials of homocysteine-lowering therapy and VT risk have been negative.

Caregivers' Self-Reported Absence of Social Support Networks is Related to Treatment Abandonment in Children With Cancer.

Background: Treatment abandonment (TxA) is a primary cause of therapy failure in children with cancer in low-/middle-income countries. We explored the absence of social support network (SSN), among other predictive factors, and TxA in children with cancer in Cali, Colombia.

Procedure: In this prospective cohort study, we included children diagnosed with cancer at a public university hospital.