Categorization and Analysis of Primary Care mHealth Apps Related to Breast Health and Breast Cancer: Systematic Search in App Stores and Content Analysis.

Background: Breast cancer is the most common cause of cancer mortality among women globally. The use of mobile health tools such as apps and games is increasing rapidly, even in low- and middle-income countries, to promote early diagnosis and to manage care and support of survivors and patients.

Objective: The primary objective of this review was to categorize selected mobile health apps related to breast health and prevention of breast cancer, based on features such as breast self-examination (BSE) training and reminders, and to analyze their current dissemination.

Metabolomic signatures in elite cyclists: differential characterization of a seeming normal endocrine status regarding three serum hormones.

Introduction: Serum phenotyping of elite cyclists regarding cortisol, IGF1 and testosterone is a way to detect endocrine disruptions possibly explained by exercise overload, non-balanced diet or by doping. This latter disruption-driven approach is supported by fundamental physiology although without any evidence of any metabolic markers.

Objectives: Serum samples were distributed through Low, High or Normal endocrine classes according to hormone concentration.

Regularized bidimensional estimation of the hazard rate.

In epidemiological or demographic studies, with variable age at onset, a typical quantity of interest is the incidence of a disease (for example the cancer incidence). In these studies, the individuals are usually highly heterogeneous in terms of dates of birth (the cohort) and with respect to the calendar time (the period) and appropriate estimation methods are needed. In this article a new estimation method is presented which extends classical age-period-cohort analysis by allowing interactions between age, period and cohort effects.

Global blood gene expression profiles following a breast cancer diagnosis-Clinical follow-up in the NOWAC post-genome cohort.

Objective: This explorative study aimed to assess if there are any time-dependent blood gene expression changes during the first one to eight years after breast cancer diagnosis, which can be linked to the clinical outcome of the disease.

Material And Methods: A random distribution of follow-up time from breast cancer diagnosis till blood sampling was obtained by a nested, matched case-control design in the Norwegian Women and Cancer Post-genome Cohort. From 2002-5, women were invited to donate blood samples, regardless of any cancer diagnosis.

A big-data approach to producing descriptive anthropometric references: a feasibility and validation study of paediatric growth charts.

Background: Both national and WHO growth charts have been found to be poorly calibrated with the physical growth of children in many countries. We aimed to generate new national growth charts for French children in the context of huge datasets of physical growth measurements routinely collected by office-based health practitioners.

Methods: We recruited 32 randomly sampled primary care paediatricians and ten volunteer general practitioners from across the French metropolitan territory who used the same electronic medical records software, from which we extracted all physical growth data for the paediatric patients, with anonymisation.

Can atmospheric pollutants influence menstrual cycle function?

A few experimental studies suggest that atmospheric pollutants could affect the endocrine system, and in particular stress hormones and the hypothalamic-hypophyseal-ovarian axis, which could in turn influence menstrual cycle function. We aimed to study the possible short-term effects of atmospheric pollutants on the length of the follicular and luteal phases and on the duration of the menstrual cycle in humans. To do so, from a nation-wide study on couples' fecundity, we recruited 184 women not using contraception who collected urine samples at least every other day during one menstrual cycle, from which a progesterone metabolite was assayed, allowing estimation of the duration of the follicular and luteal phases of the cycle.

Impact of on-site clinical genetics consultations on diagnostic rate in children and young adults with autism spectrum disorder.

Background: Neurogenetics investigations and diagnostic yield in patients with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have significantly improved over the last few years. Yet, many patients still fail to be systematically investigated.

Methods: To improve access to services, an ambulatory team has been established since 1998, delivering on-site clinical genetics consultations and gradually upgrading services to 502 children and young adults with ASD in their standard environment across 26 day-care hospitals and specialized institutions within the Greater Paris region.

Rethinking the carcinogenesis of breast cancer: The theory of breast cancer as a child deficiency disease or a pseudo semi-allograft.

The theory of breast cancer as a child deficiency disease is an inversion of the current paradigm, which considers full-term pregnancies to be a protective factor and uses nulliparous women as the reference group. Instead, the theory of breast cancer as a child deficiency disease says that women with the highest parity (about 20, which is the limit of human fertility) are those with the lowest risk and should be used as the reference group in risk estimations. This theory is explained biologically by converting parity from the simple value of number of children into an understanding of the long-lasting biological and immunological effects of pregnancy.

Each pregnancy linearly changes immune gene expression in the blood of healthy women compared with breast cancer patients.

Background: There is a large body of evidence demonstrating long-lasting protective effect of each full-term pregnancy (FTP) on the development of breast cancer (BC) later in life, a phenomenon that could be related to both hormonal and immunological changes during pregnancies. In this work, we studied the pregnancy-associated differences in peripheral blood gene expression profiles between healthy women and women diagnosed with BC in a prospective design.

Methods: Using an integrated system epidemiology approach, we modeled BC incidence as a function of parity in the Norwegian Women and Cancer (NOWAC) cohort (165,000 women) and then tested the resulting mathematical model using gene expression profiles in blood in a nested case-control study (460 invasive case-control pairs) of women from the NOWAC postgenome cohort.

Levonorgestrel-releasing intrauterine system use is associated with a decreased risk of ovarian and endometrial cancer, without increased risk of breast cancer. Results from the NOWAC Study.

Objective: Women with ovarian cancer have poor survival rates, which have proven difficult to improve; therefore primary prevention is important. The levonorgestrel-releasing intrauterine system (LNG-IUS) prevents endometrial cancer, and recent studies suggested that it may also prevent ovarian cancer, but with a concurrent increased risk of breast cancer. We compared adjusted risks of ovarian, endometrial, and breast cancer in ever users and never users of LNG-IUS.

Ovulatory status and menstrual cycle duration assessed by self-collection of urine on pH strips in a population-based sample of French women not using hormonal contraception.

Background: Assessing menstrual cycle function in the general population using a non-invasive method is challenging, both in non-industrialized and industrialized countries.

Subjects And Methods: The Observatory of Fecundity in France (Obseff) recruited on a nationwide basis a random sample of 943 women aged 18-44 years with unprotected intercourse. A sub-study was set up to assess the characteristics of a menstrual cycle by using a non-invasive method adapted to the general population.

No overdiagnosis in the Norwegian Breast Cancer Screening Program estimated by combining record linkage and questionnaire information in the Norwegian Women and Cancer study.

Background: The Norwegian Breast Cancer Screening Program (NBCSP) was implemented across the country in 2005 and has been criticised for potential 'overdiagnosis', i.e. a breast cancer diagnosis that otherwise would not have been detected or treated in a woman's lifetime.

What is the care pathway of patients who undergo thyroid surgery in France and its potential pitfalls? A national cohort.

Context: The rate of thyroid cancer is increasing in France, as well as concerns about overdiagnosis and treatment.

Objectives: To examine the care pathway of patients who undergo thyroid surgery in France and detect potential pitfalls.

Design: A large observational study based on medical reimbursements, 2009-2011.

Quantification of physical activity using the QAPACE Questionnaire: a two stage cluster sample design survey of children and adolescents attending urban school.

Background: Quantification of physical activity as energy expenditure is important since youth for the prevention of chronic non communicable diseases in adulthood. It is necessary to quantify physical activity expressed in daily energy expenditure (DEE) in school children and adolescents between 8-16 years, by age, gender and socioeconomic level (SEL) in Bogotá.

Methods: This is a Two Stage Cluster Survey Sample.

A new statistical method for curve group analysis of longitudinal gene expression data illustrated for breast cancer in the NOWAC postgenome cohort as a proof of principle.

Background: The understanding of changes in temporal processes related to human carcinogenesis is limited. One approach for prospective functional genomic studies is to compile trajectories of differential expression of genes, based on measurements from many case-control pairs. We propose a new statistical method that does not assume any parametric shape for the gene trajectories.

Biosocial correlates of age at menarche in a British cohort.

Background: A large number of biosocial variables have been shown to associate with age at menarche, but the results are inconsistent and differentiate not only between countries but within countries as well.

Aim: This study examined age at menarche in a British national cohort in relation to 21 biosocial and anthropometric variables.

Subjects And Methods: The analyses were based on 4483 girls from the British National Child Development Study (NCDS).

A processual model for functional analyses of carcinogenesis in the prospective cohort design.

Traditionally, the prospective design has been chosen for risk factor analyses of lifestyle and cancer using mainly estimation by survival analysis methods. With new technologies, epidemiologists can expand their prospective studies to include functional genomics given either as transcriptomics, mRNA and microRNA, or epigenetics in blood or other biological materials. The novel functional analyses should not be assessed using classical survival analyses since the main goal is not risk estimation, but the analysis of functional genomics as part of the dynamic carcinogenic process over time, i.

Quantification of physical activity using the QAPACE questionnaire: A two stage cluster sample design survey of children and adolescents attending urban school.

Background: Quantification of physical activity as energy expenditure is important since youth for the prevention of chronic non communicable diseases in adulthood. It is necessary to quantify physical activity expressed in daily energy expenditure (DEE) in school children and adolescents between 8-16 years, by age, gender and socioeconomic level (SEL) in Bogotá.

Methods: This is a Two Stage Cluster Survey Sample.

[PSA testing, biopsy and cancer and benign prostate hyperplasia in France].

Introduction: Prostate-specific antigen (PSA) testing is high in France. The aim of this study was to estimate their frequency and those of biopsy and newly diagnosed cancer (PCa) according to the presence or absence of treated benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH).

Patients And Methods: This study concerned men 40 years and older covered by the main French national health insurance scheme (73 % of all men of this age).

hGH isoform differential immunoassays applied to blood samples from athletes: decision limits for anti-doping testing.

Objective: To detect hGH doping in sport, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA)-accredited laboratories use the ratio of the concentrations of recombinant hGH ('rec') versus other 'natural' pituitary-derived isoforms of hGH ('pit'), measured with two different kits developed specifically to detect the administration of exogenous hGH. The current joint compliance decision limits (DLs) for ratios derived from these kits, designed so that they would both be exceeded in fewer than 1 in 10,000 samples from non-doping athletes, are based on data accrued in anti-doping labs up to March 2010, and later confirmed with data up to February-March 2011. In April 2013, WADA asked the authors to analyze the now much larger set of ratios collected in routine hGH testing of athletes, and to document in the peer-reviewed literature a statistical procedure for establishing DLs, so that it be re-applied as more data become available.

Prostate cancer outcomes in France: treatments, adverse effects and two-year mortality.

Background: This very large population-based study investigated outcomes after a diagnosis of prostate cancer (PCa) in terms of mortality rates, treatments and adverse effects.

Methods: Among the 11 million men aged 40 years and over covered by the general national health insurance scheme, those with newly managed PCa in 2009 were followed for two years based on data from the national health insurance information system (SNIIRAM). Patients were identified using hospitalisation diagnoses and specific refunds related to PCa and PCa treatments.