This systematic review collates research on the topic of dietary patterns and breast cancer risks. The literature search targeted epidemiological studies published up to December 2012 and was conducted using the Medline (U.S. National Library of Medicine, Bethesda MD, USA) and Lilacs (Latin American and Caribbean Health Sciences, São Paulo, Brazil) databases. The following search terms were used: breast cancer, breast neoplasm, breast carcinoma, diet, food, eating habits, dietary patterns, factor analysis, and principal component analysis. Only studies that used factor analysis techniques and/or principal component analysis were eligible, and a total of 26 studies were included. The findings of these studies suggest the Mediterranean dietary pattern and diets composed largely of vegetables, fruit, fish, and soy are associated with a decreased risk of breast cancer. There was no evidence of an association between traditional dietary patterns and risk of breast cancer, and only one study showed a significant increase in risk associated with the Western dietary pattern. Diets that include alcoholic beverages may be associated with increased risk.

Reported efficacies of drugs used to treat Strongyloides stercoralis infection vary widely. Because diagnostic methods are insensitive, therapeutic trials generally require multiple negative posttreatment stool specimens as evidence of drug efficacy. However, only a single positive stool specimen is usually required for study enrollment. To determine the reproducibility of detection of S. stercoralis larvae in the stool, 108 asymptomatic infected men submitted 25 g of fresh stool once a week for eight consecutive weeks for examination by the Baermann technique. During the 8-week study, 239 (27.7%) of 864 stool specimens were positive for S. stercoralis. Rates of detection of larvae in the stool specimens ranged from eight of eight specimens in 3 (2.8%) men to none of eight specimens in 36 (33.3%) men. Of 43 men for whom S. stercoralis was detected in at least two of the first four stool specimens, only 1 (2.3%) man tested negative on all of the next four specimens. In comparison, of 29 men who had detectable larvae in only one of the first four specimens, 22 (75.9%) tested negative on all of the next four samples. Thus, if these 29 men had been enrolled in a therapeutic trial between the first and second sets of four specimens, the efficacy of a drug with no activity against this parasite would have been estimated to be 76%. These data suggest that patterns of S. stercoralis detection vary widely among infected persons and that intermittent larval shedding can lead to inflated estimates of drug efficacy. Before a patient is entered in a clinical trial of drug efficacy, four consecutive stool specimens should be examined for S. stercoralis; only persons with two or more positive specimens should be enrolled.