Background: Particulate matter (PM) acts as an environment pollutant and thus plays a vital role in the development of human lung cancer. Whether PM is a risk factor for breast cancer (BC) morbidity and mortality, however, is not clear. Recently, several studies have reported inconsistent results for the association between PM and BC risk. This meta-analysis examines the indefinite relationship between exposure to PM and BC morbidity and mortality. Methods: Based on a search of Pubmed, Embase, Web of Science and Cochrane Library, the hazard ratio (HR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) were extracted and analyzed by Review Manager 5.3 and Stata14.0 to estimate the association between PM and BC morbidity and mortality. The heterogeneity for the included studies was evaluated using a Chi-square test and the I ² statistic. Forest plot was used to illustrate the pooled HR and mean difference. A Funnel plot, Begg test, and Egger test were performed to explore the publication bias between the included studies. All analyses were based on previous published studies, thus, no ethical approval and patient consent are required. Results: A total of 14 of 284 publications with 1,004,128 BC cases were gathered. The analysis showed each 10 μg/m³ of PM_2.5 (diameter ≤2.5 μm) was associated with 1.17 (95% CI: 1.05–1.30, P = .004) fold risk BC mortality, and each 10 μg/m³ of PM₁₀ (diameter ≤10 μm) was associated with 1.11 (95% CI: 1.02–1.21, P = .021) fold risk BC mortality. However, neither PM₁₀ nor PM_2.5 was found to be significantly associated with BC morbidity. Publication bias was detected in studies on PM_2.5 and BC mortality. Conclusions: Our study suggests that PM exposure may raise the mortality but not the morbidity of BC. Still, further studies may be necessary to confirm this finding.

Cervical squamous cell carcinoma and endocervical adenocarcinoma (CESC) still present a huge threaten to women’s health, especially the local advanced patients. Hence, developing more effectiveness prognostic signatures is urgently needed. This study constructed and verified a robust RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) related signature through a series of bioinformatics methods and explored the biological function of hub RBP in vitro experiments. As a result, the 10 RBPs signature was successfully established and could act as an independent prognostic biomarker in CESC patients, which displayed the highest sensitivity and specificity in prognosis prediction compared with other clinicopathological parameters. The risk model also presented good performance in risk stratification among CESC patients. Besides, a nomogram was constructed based on pathological stage and the risk signature and exhibited satisfactory accuracy in prognosis prediction. Functional enrichment indicated that the risk signature mainly participated in immune-related pathways and cancer-related pathways, and the infiltration level of immune cells and immune checkpoints showed a significantly higher degree in low-risk patients compared with high-risk patients. Notably, the 10 RBPs signature act as a novel biomarker in immunotherapy and chemotherapy response. In addition, PRPF40B was selected as hub RBP and its transcription and translation levels were obviously increased in CESC tissues, as well as Hela and Siha cells. Knockdown of PRPF40B inhibits the proliferation, migration and invasion of Hela and Siha cells in vitro. In conclusion, our research provides a noticeable strategy in prognostic prediction among CESC patients, which may illuminate the prospect of CESC patients’ clinical outcome.