Demographics and incidence of anal squamous cell carcinoma in people living in high HIV prevalence geographical areas.

OBJECTIVES: Anal squamous cell carcinoma (ASCC) is an uncommon cancer that is rapidly increasing in incidence. HIV is a risk factor in the development of ASCC, and it is thought that the rapidly increasing incidence in men is related to increasing numbers of people living with HIV (PLWH). We undertook a population-based study comparing the demographics and incidence of ASCC in patients residing high HIV prevalence areas in England to patients living in average HIV prevalence areas in England. METHODS: This is a cross-sectional study following the 'Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology' statement. Demographic data and incidence rates of ASCC within Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) between 2013 and 2018 were extracted from the Cancer Outcomes and Services Dataset. CCGs were then stratified by HIV prevalence from data given by Public Health England, and high HIV prevalence geographical areas were compared with average HIV geographical areas. RESULTS: Patients in high HIV areas were more likely to be young and male with higher levels of social deprivation. Incidence rates in men between 2013 and 2017 were higher in high HIV areas than average HIV areas with a rapidly increasing incidence rates in early-stage disease and a 79.1% reduction in incidence of metastatic stage 4 disease.Whereas women in high HIV areas had lower ASCC incidence than the national average and a low incidence of early-stage disease; however, metastatic disease in women had quintupled in incidence in high HIV areas since 2013. CONCLUSIONS: Patients presenting with ASCC in high HIV geographical areas have different demographics to patients presenting in average HIV geographical areas. This may be related to screening programmes for PLWH in high HIV areas.

What makes ribosomes tick?

In most organisms, gene expression over the course of the day is under the control of the circadian clock. The canonical clock operates as a gene expression circuit that is controlled at the level of transcription, and transcriptional control is also a major clock output. However, rhythmic transcription cannot explain all the observed rhythms in protein accumulation. Although it is clear that rhythmic gene expression also involves RNA processing and protein turnover, until two years ago little was known in any eukaryote about diel dynamics of mRNA translation into protein. A recent series of studies in animals and plants demonstrated that diel cycles of translation efficiency are widespread across the tree of life and its transcriptomes. There are surprising parallels between the patterns of diel translation in mammals and plants. For example, ribosomal proteins and mitochondrial proteins are under translational control in mouse liver, human tissue culture, and Arabidopsis seedlings. In contrast, the way in which the circadian clock, light-dark changes, and other environmental factors such as nutritional signals interact to drive the cycles of translation may differ between organisms. Further investigation is needed to identify the signaling pathways, biochemical mechanisms, RNA sequence features, and the physiological implications of diel translation.