An Integrated Approach for the Environmental Characterization of a Wide Potentially Contaminated Area in Southern Italy.

This paper deals with the environmental characterization of a large and densely populated area, with a poor reputation for contamination, considering the contribution of environmental features (air, soil, soil hydraulic and groundwater) and the potential effects on human health. The use of Geographic Information System (GIS) has made possible a georeferenced inventory and, by overlaying environmental information, an operational synthesis of comprehensive environmental conditions. The cumulative effects on environmental features were evaluated, taking into account superposition effects, by means of the Spatial MultiCriteria Decision Analysis (S-MCDA).

Body weight and risk of molecular breast cancer subtypes among postmenopausal Mediterranean women.

Breast cancer (BC) is the most common malignant tumor in women, obesity is associated with increased BC incidence and mortality and high levels of circulating insulin may negatively impact on cancer incidence. In the present study, we investigated whether the strength of several anthropometric and metabolic parameters varies between BC molecular subtypes. Eligible cases were 991 non-metastatic BC patients recruited between January 2009 and December 2013.

BMI and breast cancer prognosis benefit: mammography screening reveals differences between normal weight and overweight women.

Objectives: Few studies are available on the potential impact of body weight on breast cancer prognosis in screen-detected patients. Moreover, it is not known whether body mass index (BMI) could have a different prognostic impact in screen-detected versus symptomatic breast cancer patients. To investigate these unsolved issues, we carried out a retrospective study evaluating the effect of BMI on breast cancer prognosis in screen-detected vs symptomatic breast cancer patients.

Association between mode of breast cancer detection and diagnosis delay.

We investigated the association between mode of breast cancer (Bca) detection and diagnosis delay in a case-series of primary, histologically confirmed Bca patients from Southern Italy. Nine hundred and fifty nine women diagnosed with incident, primary Bca were recruited in two southern Italian regions. We grouped the mode of detection into two categories: Self-Detection (S-D) and Mammography (MG).