Aflatoxins: data on human carcinogenic risk.

Some of the major difficulties in assessing the role of aflatoxin (AF) in the causation of liver cancer are discussed. Firstly, exposure to AF in Africa and parts of Asia and Latin America might begin very early in life and episodically thereafter. The number of episodes and the degree of exposure to AF varies greatly by country and region, by agricultural and crop storage practices, by season and by other factors difficult to control in any questionnaire-based study.

Aflatoxin exposure, hepatitis B virus infection and liver cancer in Swaziland.

A study was carried out in Swaziland to assess the relationship between aflatoxin exposure, hepatitis B infection, and the incidence of liver-cell carcinoma, which is the most commonly occurring malignancy among males in Swaziland. Levels of aflatoxin intake were evaluated in dietary samples from households across the country, and crop samples taken from representative farms. Prevalence of hepatitis B markers was estimated from the serum of blood donors, and liver cancer incidence was recorded for the years 1979-83 through a national system of cancer registration.

Dietary aflatoxins and human primary liver cancer.

The results of the dietary aflatoxin-liver cancer study carried out in the Murang'a district of Kenya have been reassessed in relation to disease incidence rates based on a total of seven years of cancer registration and related to the Population Census carried out during the course of the initial study. These newly derived data have been combined with the results of a second similar dietary aflatoxin-liver cancer study which was later carried out in Swaziland. Separate treatment of the male and female data has been considered necessary due to the variation of the sex ratio of the disease incidence in the two areas.

Dietary aflatoxins and human liver cancer. A study in Swaziland.

A study in Swaziland to assess the possible relationship of aflatoxin contamination and the incidence of primary liver cancer is reported. Aflatoxin ingestion levels have been determined in "food from the plate" samples collected over a 1-year period. A significant correlation between the calculated ingested daily dose and the adult male incidence of primary liver cancer in different parts of Swaziland has been established.

Cancer of asians in kenya.

The frequency of various cancers among Indian immigrants in Kenya was compared to corresponding data among native Africans and Indians in the regions of India from which most of the studied population originally migrated. The Kenyan Indians do not have the cancer pattern of their home country nor do they have the cancer pattern of indigenous Africans. They have instead, like Europeans and North Americans, a higher risk of cancer of the lung, breast and the large intestine.

In vitro immunological studies on East African cancer patients. II. Increased sensitivity of blood lymphocytes from untreated Burkitt lymphoma patients to inhibition of spontaneous rosette formation.

Frozen aliquots of peripheral blood mononuclear cells from patients with Burkitt's lymphoma (BL) at various stages of the disease have been compared with samples from East African children who were healthy or who suffered from non-malinant disorders. Using the sheep-cell rosette test (which is believed to identify T-lymphocytes), we found a significant reduction in the proportion of rosette-forming cells (RFC) in the samples from untreated BL patients. After reduction of remission the difference between BL patients and controls was abolished.

A focus of rumenal cancer in Kenyan cattle.

A minimal incidence rate of 2·5% of rumenal cancer of cattle in the Nasampolai valley of Kenya Masailand has been established.Carcinoma of the oesophagus and oesophageal region of the stomach in two free-living giant forest hogs from the same area is reported.The high incidence of the bovine disease is thought to be associated with the abnormal forest grazing of the cattle.