Patients with giant cell arteritis (GCA) generally present with cranial ischemic manifestations that are directly related to vascular involvement. They may also experience strokes in the territory of the carotid or the vertebrobasilar artery. We conducted the current study to assess the frequency and predictors of strokes in general, and of vertebrobasilar stroke in particular, at the time of diagnosis in a series of 287 consecutive patients with biopsy-proven GCA diagnosed over a 27-year period at the single hospital for a well-defined population of northwestern Spain.During the study period, 8 (2.8%) patients had strokes (1 in the carotid and 7 in the vertebrobasilar territory) between the onset of symptoms of the disease and 4 weeks after the onset of corticosteroid therapy. Six of the 7 patients with vertebrobasilar stroke were men. In most cases the vertebrobasilar stroke occurred after the onset of corticosteroid therapy. Smoking history was more common among patients with vertebrobasilar stroke (p = 0.01). Patients with vertebrobasilar stroke more commonly had permanent visual loss due to arteritic involvement of ophthalmic branches derived from the internal carotid (3/7; 42.9%) than the rest of GCA patients (33/280; 11.8%) (p = 0.05). Patients with strokes had higher hemoglobin values (13.2 +/- 1.5 g/dL) than patients without (11.7 +/- 1.6 g/dL) (p = 0.009). Moreover, only 1 (14.3%) of the 7 patients with vertebrobasilar stroke had anemia compared to 157 (56.1%) of the remaining 280 patients (p = 0.05). The best predictors of stroke were permanent visual loss (odds ratio [OR], 5.42) and arterial hypertension (OR, 5.06). In contrast, women (OR, 0.10) and patients with anemia at the time of disease diagnosis (OR, 0.11) had a significantly reduced risk of suffering strokes. Smoking history was the best positive predictor of vertebrobasilar stroke (OR, 5.22). In contrast, a reduced risk of suffering vertebrobasilar strokes was found in individuals who had anemia at the time of GCA diagnosis (OR, 0.13).Results of the current study show an increased risk of strokes, in the vertebrobasilar territory in particular, at the time of GCA diagnosis. Patients with biopsy-proven GCA and traditional cardiovascular risk factors or permanent visual loss have an increased risk of suffering strokes. Results also suggest a potential protective role of anemia against the development of these cerebrovascular complications.

Night shift work has been classified as a probable human carcinogen based on experimental studies and limited human evidence on breast cancer. Evidence on other common cancers, such as prostate cancer, is scarce. Chronotype is an individual characteristic that may relate to night work adaptation. We evaluated night shift work with relation to prostate cancer, taking into account chronotype and disease severity in a population based case-control study in Spain. We included 1,095 prostate cancer cases and 1,388 randomly selected population controls. We collected detailed information on shift schedules (permanent vs. rotating, time schedules, duration, frequency), using lifetime occupational history. Sociodemographic and lifestyle factors were assessed by face-to-face interviews and chronotype through a validated questionnaire. We used unconditional logistic regression analysis adjusting for potential confounders. Subjects who had worked at least for one year in night shift work had a slightly higher prostate cancer risk [Odds Ratio (OR) 1.14; 95%CI 0.94, 1.37] compared with never night workers; this risk increased with longer duration of exposure ( 28 years: OR 1.37; 95%CI 1.05, 1.81; p-trend 5 0.047). Risks were more pronounced for high risk tumors [D'Amico classification, Relative Risk Ratio (RRR) 1.40; 95%CI 1.05, 1.86], particularly among subjects with longer duration of exposure ( 28 years: RRR 1.63; 95%CI 1.08, 2.45; p-trend 5 0.027). Overall risk was higher among subjects with an evening chronotype, but also increased in morning chronotypes after long-term night work. In this large population based study, we found an association between night shift work and prostate cancer particularly for tumors with worse prognosis.

Prostate cancer is a polygenic disease with a large heritable component. A number of common, low-penetrance prostate cancer risk loci have been identified through GWAS. Here we apply the Bayesian multivariate variable selection algorithm JAM to fine-map 84 prostate cancer susceptibility loci, using summary data from a large European ancestry meta-analysis. We observe evidence for multiple independent signals at 12 regions and 99 risk signals overall. Only 15 original GWAS tag SNPs remain among the catalogue of candidate variants identified; the remainder are replaced by more likely candidates. Biological annotation of our credible set of variants indicates significant enrichment within promoter and enhancer elements, and transcription factor-binding sites, including AR, ERG and FOXA1. In 40 regions at least one variant is colocalised with an eQTL in prostate cancer tissue. The refined set of candidate variants substantially increase the proportion of familial relative risk explained by these known susceptibility regions, which highlights the importance of fine-mapping studies and has implications for clinical risk profiling.

The relationship between vitamin D and breast cancer is still controversial. The present meta-analysis examines the effects of the 25(OH)D, 1,25(OH)2D and vitamin D intake on breast cancer risk. For this purpose, a PubMed, Scopus and Web of Science-databases search was conducted including all papers published with the keywords “breast cancer” and “vitamin D” with at least one reported relative risk (RR) or odds ratio (OR). In total sixty eight studies published between 1998 and 2018 were analyzed. Information about type of study, hormonal receptors and menopausal status was retrieved. Pooled OR or RR were estimated by weighting individual OR/RR by the inverse of their variance Our study showed a protective effect between 25 (OH) D and breast cancer in both cohort studies (RR = 0.85, 95%CI:0.74–0.98) and case-control studies (OR = 0.65, 95%CI: 0.56–0.76). However, analyzing by menopausal status, the protective vitamin D – breast cancer association persisted only in the premenopausal group (OR = 0.67, 95%CI: 0.49–0.92) when restricting the analysis to nested case-control studies. No significant association was found for vitamin D intake or 1,25(OH)2D. Conclusion: This systematic review suggests a protective relationship between circulating vitamin D (measured as 25(OH) D) and breast cancer development in premenopausal women.