[The analysis of newspaper articles' reporting of legislation relating to Cancer Registries].

Objectives　The first population-based cancer registry (PBCR) was established in Japan in the 1950s; however, the legality of the registry was unclear, and scarcity of government funding resulted in data of poor quality. Although the collection of personal information is indispensable to checking for duplicated records and for patient follow-up, privacy protection was a main obstacle and was directly related to public opinion. The purpose of this study is to figure out the changing perspectives of newspaper reports about PBCR and to discuss qualitative changes in them.Methods　Articles with the PBCR-related keywords "cancer and registration", "cancer and statistics", "cancer and control policies" and "cancer and information" were extracted from five major newspapers and 50 local papers published during the 3rd-term Comprehensive 10-year Strategy for Cancer Control (2004-2013), the era of improved quality and standardization of cancer registries. From the 960 articles containing the keywords, 441 were finally for analysis.Results　Key social events occurred in the background while the articles on cancer registries increased. For instance, legislation passed for the Cancer Control Act in 2006 and the Cancer Registry Promotion Act in 2013, and carcinogenic health hazard incidents such as the nuclear plant accident after the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011 contributed to increased interest in PBCR. The word "cancer registry" appeared most frequently in 2006 (68 times) followed by 2011 (60 times). Qualitative analysis of the articles showed the tide of public opinion turned against conservative privacy protection and toward the need for data.Conclusion　The interest in cancer registries increased during the observation period due to the background events that demanded the monitoring of cancer incidences and survival rates and providing precise information on cancer burden. For the general public, the benefit of PBCR is indirect. Active provision of information on PBCRs and related epidemiology information should help generate positive public opinion in Japanese society.

Evaluation of nutritional availability and anti-tumor activity of selenium contained in selenium-enriched Kaiware radish sprouts.

We estimated the nutritional availability of selenium (Se) in Se-enriched Kaiware radish sprouts (SeRS) by the tissue Se deposition and glutathione peroxidase (GPX) activity of rats administered the sprouts, and examined the effect of SeRS on the formation of aberrant crypt foci (ACF) in the colon of mice administered 1,2-dimethylhydrazine (DMH) to evaluate anti-tumor activity. Male weanling Wistar rats were divided into seven groups and fed a Se-deficient basal diet or the basal diet supplemented with 0.05, 0.10, or 0.15 microg/g of Se as sodium selenite or SeRS for 28 d. Supplementation with Se dose-dependently increased serum and liver Se concentrations and GPX activities, and the selenite-supplemented groups showed a higher increase than the SeRS-supplemented groups. The nutritional availability of Se in SeRS was estimated to be 33 or 64% by slope ratio analysis. Male 4-week-old A/J mice were divided into seven groups and fed a low Se basal diet or the basal diet supplemented with selenite, SeRS, or selenite + non-Se-enriched radish sprouts (NonSeRS) at a level of 0.1 or 2.0 microg Se/g for 9 weeks. After 1 week of feeding, all mice were given six subcutaneous injections of DMH (20 mg/kg) at 1-week intervals. The average number of ACF formed in the colon of mice fed the basal diet was 4.3. At a supplementation level of 0.1 mug Se/g, only SeRS significantly inhibited ACF formation. At a supplementation level of 2.0 microg Se/g, both selenite and SeRS significantly inhibited ACF formation. The addition of NonSeRS to the selenite-supplemented diets tended to inhibit ACF formation, but this was not statistically significant. These results indicate that SeRS shows lower nutritional availability but higher anti-tumor activity than selenite.