Background: Quantitative measures of the burden of tobacco smoking in Asian countries are limited. We estimated the population attributable fraction (PAF) of mortality associated with smoking in Japan, using pooled data from three large-scale cohort studies. Methods: In total, 296,836 participants (140,026 males and 156,810 females) aged 40-79 years underwent baseline surveys during the 1980s and early 1990s. The average follow-up period was 9.6 years. PAFs for all-cause mortality and individual tobacco-related diseases were estimated from smoking prevalence and relative risks. Results: The prevalence of current and former smokers was 54.4% and 25.1% for males, and 8.1% and 2.4% for females. The PAF of all-cause mortality was 27.8% [95% confidence interval (CI): 25.2-30.4] for males and 6.7% (95% CI: 5.9-7.5) for females. The PAF of all-cause mortality calculated by summing the disease-specific PAFs was 19.1% (95% CI: 16.0-22.2) for males and 3.6% (95% CI: 3.0-4.2) for females. The estimated number of deaths attributable to smoking in Japan in 2005 was 163,000 for males and 33,000 for females based on the former set of PAFs, and 112,000 for males and 19,000 for females based on the latter set. The leading causes of smoking-attributable deaths were cancer (61% for males and 31% for females), ischemic heart diseases and stroke (23% for males and 51% for females), and chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases and pneumonia (11% for males and 13% for females). Conclusion: The health burden due to smoking remains heavy among Japanese males. Considering the high prevalence of male current smokers and increasing prevalence of young female current smokers, effective tobacco controls and quantitative assessments of the health burden of smoking need to be continuously implemented in Japan.

Cervical cancer is still one of the most common female cancers in Asia and the leading cause of cancer-related deaths in low-and middle-income countries. Nowadays, national screening programs for cervical cancer are widely provided in Asian countries. We reviewed the National Cancer Screening Program (NCSP) in China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, and Thailand. The NCSP were established at varying times, from 1962 in Japan to 2014 in Indonesia. The primary screening method is based on cytology in all countries except for India and Indonesia. In India and Indonesia, visual inspection of the cervix with acetic acid (VIA) is mainly used as a primary screening method, and a "see and treat" strategy is applied to women with a positive VIA result. The starting age of NCSP ranges from 18 years in China to 30 years in Thailand. The screening interval is 2 years in all countries except for China and Indonesia, in which it is 3 years. Uptake rates of NCSP vary from 5.0%-59.7%. Many women in low-and middle-income countries still do not participate in NCSP. To improve uptake rates and thereby prevent more cases of cervical cancer, Asian countries should continue to promote NCSP to the public using various approaches.

Aim:Smoking and adiponectin are individually associated with cardiometabolic pathologies. The present systematic review was carried out in order to summarize the association between the smoking status and circulating adiponectin levels. Methods: Original articles, restricted to epidemiological studies (by a cross-sectional, case-control and cohort study design) and intervention studies for adult humans, were screened for the years 1995-2010. All of the research group members then selected the eligible literature and assessed the articles in a structured systematic review manner. Results: There were 11 key studies, which included 9 articles with a cross-sectional design and 2 articles with an intervention design. Most cross-sectional studies reported lower levels of adiponectin in current smokers than in non/never smokers and/or ex-smokers, while 2 studies reported a non-significant difference in adiponectin between male smokers and non-smokers. The two intervention studies, conducted in patients on 9-week bupropion treatment and 6-month non-pharmacological treatment, reported that smoking cessation increased the adiponectin levels. Conclusion: This review suggests that there is a decreased adiponectin level in current smokers and this reduction can be reversed by quitting smoking. More studies are required to confirm the findings and elucidate the biological mechanisms underlying the association between the smoking status and adiponectin levels.

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Objective: In Japan, population-based cancer incidence data are reported several years behind the latest year of cancer mortality data. To bridge this gap, we aimed to determine a short-term projection method for cancer incidence. Seven cancer sites (stomach, liver, colorectal, lung, female breast, cervix uteri and prostate) and all cancers combined were analyzed. The accuracy of projection was evaluated by whether each observed number fell within the 95% confidence interval of the projected number. Results: The A*P spline model accurately projected 8 of 13 cancer site -sex combinations, whereas the number of site-sex combinations of accurate projection was 2 and 6 for A þ P linear and A*P linear models, respectively. For liver and colorectal cancers, the A*P spline model alone performed accurate projections; the relative differences between projected and observed numbers of cancer incidence ranged between 20.4 and þ10.9% for the A*P spline, and between þ7.4 and þ37.6% for the other two models. All three models failed to project sudden increases in prostate cancer between 2000 and 2005. Conclusions: The A*P spline model is a candidate method for the projection of cancer incidence in Japan. However, we need a continuous validation for prostate cancer.

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