Brassiere wearing and breast cancer risk:A systematic review and meta-analysis

AIM： To evaluate existing evidence for the association between different type of brassiere exposures and the risk of breast cancer.METHODS： Ovid Medline, CINAHL, Cochrane Data Base of Systematic Reviews, Pubmed, Scopus, Proquest, Sciencedirect, Wiley Online Library, WanFang Data, Hong Kong Index to Chinese Periodicals, China Journal Net, Chinese Medical Current Contents, Chinese Biomedical Literature Database, China Academic Journals Full-Text database, Taiwan Electronic Periodical Services and HyRead; reference lists of published studies; origi-nal research studies published in English or Chinese examining the association between type and duration of brassiere-wearing and breast cancer risk. Data were abstracted by a frst reviewer and verifed by a second. Study quality was rated according to predefned criteria. “Fair” or “good” quality studies were included. Results were summarised by meta-analysis whenever adequate material was available.RESULTS： Twelve case-control studies were included in the review. Meta-analysis showed brassiere wearing during sleep was associated with a two times ofincreased odds. CONCLUSION： The present review demonstrates insuffcient evidence to establish a positive association between the duration and type of brassiere wearing and breast cancer. Further research is essential; specifcally, a large-scale epidemiological study of a better design is needed to examine the association between various forms of brassiere exposure in detail and breast cancer risk, with adequate control of confounding variables.

Supportive care needs and health-related quality of life among Chinese lung cancer survivors

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore the supportive care needs and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) of lung cancer survivors, and to identify the association between patient characteristics, HRQoL and supportive care needs. Method: This was a sub-study of a larger scale survey of cancer survivors’ supportive care needs. A total of 48 lung cancer survivors were recruited from a regional teaching hospital, and a three-part structured questionnaire was used to collect 1) socio-demographic and clinical characteristics, 2) supportive care needs and 3) health-related quality of life data. Results: The three most commonly reported unmet needs were all in the health-system information domain: 1) being informed about your results as soon as possible (58%), 2) being informed about cancer which is under control or diminishing (50%), and 3) being informed about things you can do to help yourself get well (46%). The second most common unmet need domain was access to healthcare and ancillary support services. The survivors generally reported satisfactory HRQoL. However, household income and unmet physical and psychological needs were independently associated with HRQoL among these survivors. Conclusion: The high unmet needs in the health-system information area call for a review of the content and amount of information provided to lung cancer survivors. In addition, more attention should be given to lung cancer survivors with low incomes but high physical and psychological unmet needs, who require appropriate follow-up and long-term care of a physical, social and psychological kind.