Socioeconomic inequality of cancer mortality in the United States: a spatial data mining approach

Background  

The objective of this study was to demonstrate the use of an association rule mining approach to discover associations between selected socioeconomic variables and the four most leading causes of cancer mortality in the United States. An association rule mining algorithm was applied to extract associations between the 1988–1992 cancer mortality rates for colorectal, lung, breast, and prostate cancers defined at the Health Service Area level and selected socioeconomic variables from the 1990 United States census. Geographic information system technology was used to integrate these data which were defined at different spatial resolutions, and to visualize and analyze the results from the association rule mining process.     

Radiation-induced effects on gene expression: an in vivo study on breast cancer.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Breast cancer is diagnosed worldwide in approximately one million women annually and radiation therapy is an integral part of treatment. The purpose of this study was to investigate the molecular basis underlying response to radiotherapy in breast cancer tissue. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Tumour biopsies were sampled before radiation and after 10 treatments (of 2 Gray (Gy) each) from 19 patients with breast cancer receiving radiation therapy. Gene expression microarray analyses were performed to identify in vivo radiation-responsive genes in tumours from patients diagnosed with breast cancer. The mutation status of the TP53 gene was determined by using direct sequencing. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Several genes involved in cell cycle regulation and DNA repair were found to be significantly induced by radiation treatment. Mutations were found in the TP53 gene in 39% of the tumours and the gene expression profiles observed seemed to be influenced by the TP53 mutation status.     

Injury prevention and the promotion of physical activity: What is the nexus?

The promotion of physical activity is a public health priority for Australia. The new "National Physical Activity Guidelines for Australians" include a statement on additional health benefits of vigorous sporting and fitness activities. However, injury associated with sport and physical activity can lead to significant health care costs and consequent disabilities and reduced mobility may result in inactivity, this increasing the risk of cardiovascular disease and other health problems. Consideration of injury prevention principles when promoting physical activity is therefore crucial. There are several areas of research needed in this new field. These include the importance of good quality population monitoring and the use of other data sources to determine the population-wide consequences and health costs of injury sustained during sport and physical activity. The goal is to have evidence based, educational, regulatory and other preventive strategies that can be systematically evaluated by drawing on well organised, representative population-based injury data.     

The primary care amplification model: taking the best of primary care forward

Background  

Primary care internationally is approaching a new paradigm. The change agenda implicit in this threatens to de-stabilise and challenge established general practice and primary care.     

Chemoprevention of spontaneous tumorigenesis in nullizygous p53- deficient mice by dehydroepiandrosterone and its analog 16alpha-fluoro- 5-androsten-17-one

Transgenic mice with both alleles of the p53 tumor suppressor gene product 'knocked out' by gene targeting are susceptible to early development of tumors, chiefly lymphomas and sarcomas. Compared with the control group, administration of dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) at 0.3% of the diet to male p53-deficient mice extended their lifespan by delaying death due to neoplasms (from 105 to 166 days on study, P = 0.002), primarily by suppressing lymphoblastic lymphoma (from 45 to 6% of neoplastic deaths, P = 0.010). Treatment with a synthetic DHEA analog, 16alpha-fluoro-5-androsten-17-one (compound 8354), at 0.15% of the diet also increased lifespan, to 140 days for mice that developed tumors (P = 0.037). The effects of these steroids on lifespan and tumor development did not appear to be strongly related to inhibition of food consumption and weight gain, in that a group pair-fed with control diet to the reduced food consumption of the DHEA-treated group developed and died of the same types of neoplasms at the same rate as the controls fed ad libitum. The chemopreventive effect of these steroids has been proposed to be due to suppression of DNA synthesis by inhibition of glucose 6-phosphate dehydrogenase, the rate-limiting enzyme of the pentose phosphate pathway. Although DHEA and its analog are strong non- competitive inhibitors of this enzyme in vitro, treatment with DHEA did not deplete cellular nucleotide pools in the liver, as would have been predicted. The chemopreventive effect of DHEA in this model may be due to steroid-induced thymic atrophy and suppression of T cell lymphoma, permitting these mice to survive long enough to develop tumors with longer latency.      

Prevalence and impact of chronic childhood conditions in Auckland, New Zealand

Objective : To establish the prevalence of specific chronic conditions of childhood in the Auckland area and to quantify resource use by these children.
Methodology : Estimates were made from available registry data and published data sources of the population of children with selected chronic conditions resident in the Auckland Area Health Board area. Resource use data were extracted for admissions to Auckland public hospitals and from providers of community based technology services.
Results : The largest community prevalence groups are those with asthma, intellectual handicap, congenital heart disease and epilepsy. Children aged 0-14 with chronic conditions accounted for at least 14340 hospital days stay in Auckland in 1992 at an estimated minimum cost of $7.9 million. Over 200 children are dependent on technological aids at home.
Conclusions : There are sparse data on the numbers and needs of children with chronic conditions in the population. A non-categorical approach which crosses disease entities may be the best method of meeting common needs.     

Development of a microchamber which spontaneously selects high-quality sperm for use in in vitro fertilization or micromanipulation

Background: A microchamber has been developed which allows motile sperm to swim from a central loading site to peripheral sidewells. The sidewells are designed such that oocytes may be placed within them for in vitro fertilization (IVF) or sperm may be harvested from them for use in standard IVF or micromanipulation. Because only motile sperm can reach the sidewells, the microchamber can select relatively high-quality sperm from a crude preparation. Moreover the steep walls of the sidewells create the potential to trap sperm. Objective: The present study was under taken to compare sperm in the sidewells to those found in randomly sampled regions of microchamber after various periods of incubation. Results: We find that the sidewells concentrate motile sperm and that a higher percentage of sperm removed from side-wells is acrosome reacted. Motile sperm from oligospermic patients can be harvested from microchamber sidewells for use in micromanipulation after loading the microchamber with unprocessed specimens. Results suggest that this microchamber could be used to enhance sperm:egg interaction in IVF or to harvest sperm for micromanipulation.     

Efectividad de ivacaftor en vida real en niños con fibrosis quística y mutación G551D

Introduction

Ivacaftor is a cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) potentiator that has been shown to improve the nutritional status and lung function of cystic fibrosis patients with the G551D mutation in clinical trials. The objective of this study was to describe the real-world progress of children receiving ivacaftor.

Persistence of translocation frequencies in blood lymphocytes following radiotherapy: implications for retrospective radiation biodosimetry.

Chromosome aberration analysis using a G-banding technique was performed on peripheral blood lymphocyte cultures from eight individuals over a 5 year period following therapeutic radiation exposure. Samples were placed in three time periods comprising 0-12, 12-36 and 36-60 months post-treatment. The group was heterogeneous with respect to exposure and this resulted in wide differences in initial total translocation yields. Total translocation frequencies declined in seven of the eight cases, reaching significance in four cases. This decline was attributed to a decrease in cells, which in addition to translocations, also contained aberrations such as dicentrics which resulted in them being unstable. In all eight cases, when only stable cells were considered, no significant differences were observed in translocation frequencies between the different time periods post-treatment. Thus, although the frequency of translocations in stable cells is persistent over time, extrapolating to total initial yield, and using this to equate to dose, is not possible in cases where the exposure has been high and non-homogeneous. In practice, retrospective biological dosimetry is more often required in cases of historical, usually protracted, exposures which will have been essentially uniform and not of a sufficiently high dose for many cells to have acquired more than one aberration. In such cases the frequency of translocations observed some years after the exposure can be assumed to reflect induced frequencies and be used for dose estimation.