Selected Articles from This Issue

Social adversity from neighborhood disadvantage (ND) is associated with shorter breast cancer survival. Although studies have identified associations between ND and DNA methylation (DNAme) or gene expression (mRNA), a study integrating DNAme and mRNA to understand how the epigenome regulates key biological pathways in ND, merits further inquiry. Telonis and colleagues analyzed the association between ND, DNAme, coding, and non-coding data to understand how the epigenome regulates biological pathways. The authors discovered novel associations between ND and epigenomic regulation of clinically relevant oncogenesis pathways associated with aggressive biology, such as estrogen response pathways. These findings lay the foundation for multi-institutional studies to validate findings.Antiviral treatment for hepatitis C virus (HCV) has been shown to reduce risk of liver cancer, but there are few studies on its impact on the risk of non-liver cancers. Using longitudinal data from a racially and geographically diverse cohort of over 17,000 patients from four large US health systems, this study by Tao and colleagues aimed to evaluate the impacts of HCV treatment on incidence of several common extrahepatic cancers. The authors observed that antiviral treatment for HCV independently reduced the risk of lung cancer, while the protective association with non-Hodgkin lymphoma was limited to patients achieving sustained virologic responses. The findings support the importance of timely initiation antiviral therapy in patients with chronic HCV.The aim of this study by Järvenpää and colleagues was to evaluate the need for sex-specific exclusion protocols following a negative colonoscopy in stool-based colorectal cancer screening. In the randomized colorectal cancer screening trial carried out in Finland between 2004 and 2016, participants were referred to colonoscopy based on the result of fecal occult blood test (gFOBT). The authors assessed sex-specific colorectal cancer incidence and standardized incidence ratios after a positive gFOBT and a negative colonoscopy. Unlike men, the negative colonoscopy was not associated with a lower incidence of colorectal cancer in any of the follow-up periods in women. This suggests that the guidelines for intervals between negative colonoscopy and the time of next screening invitation might need to be considered separately based on sex.Alcohol consumption is a risk factor for certain cancers and is increasing in the United States. The current study quantified the population-level impact of no, low, moderate, and high alcohol consumption among US adults (using population-level survey data) on trends in six alcohol-related cancer incidence rates: female breast, colorectum, esophagus (squamous cell carcinoma), larynx, liver, and oral cavity and pharynx, by sex, during 2008 to 2019. Green and colleagues found that the population-attributable fractions for alcohol-related cancers have increased among women and men. Alcohol consumption is an important contributor to cancer incidence, and troublingly, its impact has increased over time. Implementing strategies to reduce alcohol use at the population level could help lower the incidence of alcohol-associated cancers.