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Introduction: Insufficient knowledge about endometriosis among women is one of the causes of its delayed diagnoses. Due to the elusiveness of symptoms, the most important component of early detection is proper and exhaustive knowledge. The objective of the study was to assess Polish women's awareness of endometriosis., Methods: The pilot studies were performed with the participation of 200 women, in an average age of 33.65 years (SD = 11.45), who completed the authors' questionnaire related to self-assessment of the level of knowledge about the disease, its symptoms, late effects and directions of a remediation procedure. The statistical analysis was performed using the IBM SPSS Statistics 25 suite. It included a frequency analysis, a one-way analysis of variance ANOVA, a single variable regression analysis and Student's t-test for independent samples., Results: Almost 84% of women had heard about endometriosis, while only 1/3 of them considered their knowledge sufficient or good. Very good knowledge was declared by 4.5% of women, while 16.1% of participants had never heard about it. The level of knowledge was significantly higher (p = 0.001) among women with medical education. Polish women acquired their knowledge mainly from the Internet and the experience of other women. The reasons identified by women were the still existing 'taboo' related to menstruation, the absence of information in the media and education in schools, which is critical according to 92.4% of women., Conclusions: Polish women's level of knowledge about endometriosis is insufficient, which we should strive to improve. Higher awareness is presented by women with medical education, and the higher the level of knowledge, the larger a woman's interest in healthy behaviour., (© 2021. The Author(s).)

Background: Patients with chronic inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) are at an increased risk of colorectal cancer (CRC) and it is estimated that one in six persons diagnosed with IBD will develop CRC. This fact suggests that genetic variations in inflammatory response genes may act as CRC disease risk modifiers., Methods: In order to test this hypothesis we investigated a series of polymorphisms in 6 genes (NOD2, DLG5, OCTN1, OCTN2, IL4, TNFalpha) associated with the inflammatory response on a group of 607 consecutive newly diagnosed colorectal cancer patients and compared the results to controls (350 consecutive newborns and 607 age, sex and geographically matched controls)., Results: Of the six genes only one polymorphism in TNFalpha(-1031T/T) showed any tendency to be associated with disease risk (64.9% for controls and 71.4% for CRC) which we further characterized on a larger cohort of CRC patients and found a more profound relationship between the TNFalpha -1031T/T genotype and disease (64.5% for controls vs 74.7% for CRC cases above 70 yrs). Then, we investigated this result and identified a suggestive tendency, linking the TNFalpha -1031T/T genotype and a previously identified change in the CARD15/NOD2 gene (OR = 1.87; p = 0,02 for CRC cases above 60 yrs)., Conclusion: The association of polymorphisms in genes involved in the inflammatory response and CRC onset suggest that there are genetic changes capable of influencing disease risk in older persons.

The NOD2 gene has been associated with susceptibility to Crohn's disease and individuals with Crohn's disease are at increased risk for cancer at a number of organ sites. We studied the association between the 3020insC allele of the NOD2 gene and cancer among 2604 cancer patients and 1910 controls from Poland. Patients were diagnosed with one of twelve types of cancer in the Szczecin region between 1994 and 2004. Significant associations were found for colon cancer (OR = 1.8; 95% CI 1.2 to 2.6), for lung cancer (OR = 1.7; 95% CI = 1.1 to 2.5) and for ovarian cancer (OR = 1.6; 95% CI 1.1 to 2.3). In addition, a significant association was found for early-onset laryngeal cancer (OR = 2.9; 95% CI 1.4 to 6.2) and for breast cancer in the presence of DCIS (OR = 2.1 95% CI = 1.2 to 3.6). The NOD2 3020insC allele is relatively common (in Poland 7.3% of individuals) and may be responsible for an important fraction of cancer cases. We estimate that the lifetime cancer risk among carriers of this allele is 30% higher than that of individuals with two wild-type alleles.