Introduction:Breast cancer has been the most common cancer type that affects women worldwide and subsequent treatment is often associated with considerable psychological and quality of life (QoL).Aim:This study aimed to assess psychometric properties of the Arabic version of the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) general QoL questionnaire (QLQ-C30) for breast cancer patients in Qatar.Materials and Methods:This is a cross-sectional hospital-based study conducted on 678 breast cancer patients using Arabic version of the EORTC QLQ-C30 tool.Results:The mean age of women was 47.7 ± 10.2 years and 33.4% of women had consanguineous parents. Six subscales out of the nine met the standards of reliability with coefficients ranging from 0.55 to 0.89. The mean score of all functioning scales was high >55. Advanced breast cancer stages of III–IV had higher symptomatic scores significantly than those in early stages for the physical function, cognitive, fatigue, insomnia, appetite loss, constipation, and financial difficulties. Correlation coefficients between each item ranged from –0.113 to 0.960, and item 21 (tense) and item 23 (irritable) had strongest negative correlations with their corresponding emotional functioning subscale, whereas items 29 (physical condition) and 30 (overall QoL) had the strongest positive correlation with Global Health/QoL subscale. Item 6 (limited work) showed a higher correlation with fatigue (r = 0.749). Likewise, item 19 (pain interfered with daily activities) of the pain subscale had higher correlations with physical functioning, role functioning, and fatigue subscales.Conclusion:Qatari Arabic version of the EORTC QLQ-C30 showed acceptable psychometric properties, which is a reliable and valid instrument, that can be used by oncologists.

PURPOSE To compare the outcomes of patients with Hodgkin or non-Hodgkin lymphoma undergoing nonmyeloablative haploidentical or unrelated cord blood (UCB) hematopoietic cell transplantation. PATIENTS AND METHODS We retrospectively studied 740 patients with Hodgkin lymphoma (n = 283, 38%) and non-Hodgkin lymphoma (n = 457, 62%) age 18-75 years who received transplantations from 2009 to 2016. Data were reported to the Lymphoma Working Party of the European Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation, Eurocord, or Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplant Research. Of the 526 patients who received haploidentical transplantation, 68% received bone marrow and 32% received peripheral blood. All patients received a uniform transplantation conditioning regimen (2 Gy of total-body irradiation, cyclophosphamide, and fludarabine) and graft-versus-host disease prophylaxis (calcineurin inhibitor and mycophenolate). In addition, patients who received a haploidentical transplantation received posttransplantation cyclophosphamide. RESULTS Compared with haploidentical bone marrow and peripheral-blood transplantations and adjusted for age, lymphoma subtype, and disease status, survival was lower after UCB transplantation (hazard ratio [HR], 1.55; P = .001; and HR, 1.59; P = .005, respectively). Similarly, progression-free survival was lower after UCB transplantations compared with haploidentical bone marrow and peripheral-blood transplantations (HR, 1.44; P = .002; and HR, 1.86; P < .0001), respectively. The 4-year overall and progression-free survival rates after UCB transplantation were 49% and 36%, respectively, compared with 58% and 46% after haploidentical bone marrow transplantation and 59% and 52% after peripheral-blood transplantation, respectively. Lower survival was attributed to higher transplantation-related mortality after UCB transplantation compared with haploidentical bone marrow and peripheral-blood transplantation (HR, 1.91; P = .0001; and HR, 2.27; P = .0002, respectively). CONCLUSION When considering HLA-mismatched transplantation for Hodgkin or non-Hodgkin lymphoma, the data support haploidentical related donor transplantation over UCB transplantation.

Imatinib is the standard of care in chronic meloid leukemia (CML) therapy. However, imatinib is not curative since most patients who discontinue therapy relapse indicating that leukemia initiating cells (LIC) are resistant. Interferon alpha (IFN) induces hematologic and cytogenetic remissions and interestingly, improved outcome was reported with the combination of interferon and imatinib. Arsenic trioxide was suggested to decrease CML LIC. We investigated the effects of arsenic and IFN on human CML cell lines or primary cells and the bone marrow retroviral transduction=transplantation murine CML model. In vitro, the combination of arsenic and IFN inhibited proliferation and activated apoptosis. Importantly, arsenic and IFN synergistically reduced the clonogenic activity of primary bone marrow cells derived from CML patients. Finally, in vivo, combined interferon and arsenic treatment, but not single agents, prolonged the survival of primary CML mice. Importantly, the combination severely impaired engraftment into untreated secondary recipients, with some recipients never developing the disease, demonstrating a dramatic decrease in CML LIC activity. Arsenic=IFN effect on CML LIC activity was significantly superior to that of imatinib. These results support further exploration of this combination, alone or with imatinib aiming at achieving CML eradication rather than long-term disease control.

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The present study findings revealed a high prevalence of vitamin D deficiency and osteoporosis in breast cancer patients. Also, the dietary intake of vitamin D and calcium was significantly lower in breast cancer women.

Background: The Gail model is the most widely used breast cancer risk assessment tool. An accurate assessment of individual’s breast cancer risk is very important for prevention of the disease and for the health care providers to make decision on taking chemoprevention for high-risk women in clinical practice in Qatar. Aim: To assess the breast cancer risk among Arab women population in Qatar using the Gail model and provide a global comparison of risk assessment. Subjects and Methods: In this cross-sectional study of 1488 women (aged 35 years and older), we used the Gail Risk Assessment Tool to assess the risk of developing breast cancer. Sociodemographic features such as age, lifestyle habits, body mass index, breast-feeding duration, consanguinity among parents, and family history of breast cancer were considered as possible risks. Results: The mean age of the study population was 47.8 ± 10.8 years. Qatari women and Arab women constituted 64.7% and 35.3% of the study population, respectively. The mean 5-year and lifetime breast cancer risks were 1.12 ± 0.52 and 10.57 ± 3.1, respectively. Consanguineous marriage among parents was seen in 30.6% of participants. We found a relationship between the 5-year and lifetime risks of breast cancer and variables such as age, age at menarche, gravidity, parity, body mass index, family history of cancer, menopause age, occupation, and level of education. The linear regression analysis identified the predictors for breast cancer in women such as age, age at menarche, age of first birth, family history and age of menopausal were considered the strong predictors and significant contributing risk factors for breast cancer after adjusting for ethnicity, parity and other variables. Conclusion: The current study is the first to evaluate the performance of the Gail model for Arab women population in the Gulf Cooperation Council. Gail model is an appropriate breast cancer risk assessment tool for female population in Qatar.

Four decades ago, Broxmeyer et al. demonstrated that umbilical cord blood (CB) contained hematopoietic stem cells (HSC) and hypothesized that CB could be used as a source of donor HSC for rescue of myeloablated bone marrow. In 1988, Gluckman et al. reported the first successful matched sibling cord blood transplant (CBT) in a child with Fanconi Anemia. In 1991, Rubinstein et al. established an unrelated donor CB bank, and in 1993, the first unrelated CBT used a unit from this bank. Since that time, &gt;40 000 CBTs have been performed worldwide. Early outcomes of CBT were mixed and demonstrated the importance of cell dose from the CB donor. We hypothesized that improvements in CB banking and transplantation favorably impacted outcomes of CBT today and performed a retrospective study combining data from Eurocord and Duke University in 4834 children transplanted with a single unrelated CB unit (CBU) from 1993 to 2019. Changes in standard transplant outcomes (overall survival [OS], disease free survival [DFS], acute and chronic graft-versus-host disease [GvHD], treatment related mortality [TRM], and relapse) over 3 time periods (1: &lt;2005; 2: 2005 to &lt;2010; and 3: &gt;2010 to 2019) were studied. Increased cell dose and degree of HLA matching were observed over time. OS, times to engraftment, and DFS improved over time. The incidence of TRM and GvHD decreased while the incidence of relapse remained unchanged. Relative contributions of cell dose and HLA matching to transplant outcomes were also assessed and showed that HLA matching was more important than cell dose in this pediatric cohort.

Breast cancer appears to be a major global health problem of both the developing and developed countries. Global statistics show that the annual incidence of breast cancer is increasing and it has been reported that each year over 1.5 million women worldwide are diagnosed with breast cancer (1). Sadler et al. (2) reported that early detection offers the greatest chance of long-term survival. Early detection of breast cancer can be achieved by performing breast self examination (BSE), clinical breast examination (CBE), and mammography. A recent study (3) conducted in the State of Qatar reported that the incidence rate of breast cancer was high (30.1 ⁄ 100,000). The increasing trend of incidence rate of breast cancer (4) shows the lack of knowledge about breast cancer and the screening methods among women in Qatar. The aim of this study was to evaluate knowledge, attitude, and practice about breast cancer, and its screening procedures among Qatari women.The cross-sectional study was based on the Primary Health Care Centers and the outpatient clinics of the Women's hospital among Qatari women from December 2008 to April 2009. Of the sample size of 1200, 1002 Qatari women of age group 30-55 years agreed to participate in the study (83.5%). A questionnaire was designed and qualified nurses were instructed to structurally interview and complete a questionnaire for randomly selected Qatari women. Student t-test, nonparametric Mann-Whitney test, Chi-square and Fisher's exact test (two-tailed) were performed for statistical analysis.Majority of the Qatari women agreed that breast cancer is the most common cancer in women (70.3%). It was worthy to observe that most of the women with higher education correctly identified that BSE is good in finding lumps (64.9%), and unattended lumps will turn into cancer (72.1%), mammography can show a lump before doing BSE or CBE (68.1%), and women should go for mammogram at certain intervals (57.1%). Despite having a sufficient level of knowledge about breast cancer, our results confirm low breast cancer screening in Qatari women; BSE (24.9%), CBE (23.3%), and mammography (22.5%). Seventy-two percent of Qatari women thought that BSE is easy to learn and 63.1% agreed to have CBE by a doctor, but most of them were afraid (63.5%) of having mammography tests. In our study sample, fear and worries were the general potential barriers toward breast cancer screening (46.5%). Embarrassment of CBE (53.3%) and fear of mammography results (54.9%) were the frequently reported barriers. Positive family history, level of education, living in an urban area, and medical check up when healthy, were significant common predictors for CBE and mammography. In conclusion, our study revealed that although Qatari women had adequate general knowledge about breast cancer, the screening rates of BSE, CBE, and mammography were low in women for early detection of cancer. Education appeared to be the major determinant of level of knowledge and for practicing screening procedures (5,6,7).