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COMMENT

The field of epidemiology has provided many clues toboth the cause and the prevention of cancer. In this field,Dr. Pelayo Correa has been a pioneer in the study of thecorrelation of Helicobacter pylori with gastric cancer andin the exploitation of this information for the develop-ment of prevention strategies. Because of this, in 1992Dr. Correa was given the very first American CancerSociety Award for research excellence in cancerepidemiology and prevention. On that occasion, he gavethe first American Cancer Society award lecture on thisgeneral topic at the annual meeting of the prestigiousAmerican Association for Cancer Research. In the yearssince, he has continued his research on gastric carcino-genesis in man and has continued to work on strategiesfor utilizing his research findings for cancer prevention,

the most effective long-term solution to cancer. In thisconcise summary, Dr. Correa has outlined our currentunderstanding of the interactions between H. pylori withits various genotypes and the human host with its variousgenetic polymorphisms. Also, he has outlined the clinicaltrial information that has been developed thus far anddescribes exciting future directions for cancer preventionstrategies. The long-term impact of the information inthis brief presentation may well have much more impacton gastric cancer in the future than most of the othertreatment discussions in this issue.

Walter Lawrence, Jr., MD

Guest Editor

DOI 10.1002/jso.20217

Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com).

138 Correa

� 2005 Wiley-Liss, Inc.