HAVE COMPLICATION RATES DECREASED AFTER TREATMENT FOR LOCALIZED PROSTATE CANCER?

PURPOSE: The American Urological Association Prostate Cancer Clinical Guidelines Panel reviewed 12,501 publications on prostate cancer from 1955 to 1992 to determine whether the complication rates of external beam radiation therapy, interstitial radiotherapy and radical prostatectomy have decreased. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Complications reported in at least 6 series, study duration and sample sizes were extracted. Year specific study weighted mean patient ages and complication rates were computed. Regression analysis was performed of the study year on weighted mean patient age and complication rate. RESULTS: Study year had a significant effect on mean patient age and rate of the majority of complications examined. Data indicated a gradual increase in study patient age and a simultaneous decrease in complications from 1960 to 1990. CONCLUSIONS: Complication rates in the treatment of localized prostate cancer have decreased during the last 20 to 40 years. This decrease occurred despite evidence that the average age of treated patients had increased during the same period.     

Relationships of measures of alcohol consumption with alcohol-related problems in multiple studies: a research synthesis from the collaborative alcohol-related longitudinal project

Two measures of alcohol consumption were used to predict groups of alcohol problems in 21 general population studies from 11 countries to determine (a) if quantity of drinking per occasion or frequency of drinking per month constituted significant “risk” for alcohol problems, having controlled for each as well as individual-level and aggregate-level variables winch might confound these relationships and (b) if these associations mere homogeneous across studies. A two-tiered analysis assessed these relationships within each study by modeling age, sex, quantity per occasion and frequency per month as predictors of alcohol problems. Mela-analysis combined test statistics to determine if they were homogeneous across studies. The meta-analysis was repealed, blocking for per capita consumption of alcohol (a trait of nations thought to measure drinking norms) and the female rate of suicide (a trail of nations thought to measure societal-level stress). When only individual-level variables were controlled (age and sex), both quantity and frequency were risk factors for each drinking problem. However, except in the case of the association of quantity with alcohol treatment, the magnitude of these risks were heterogeneous across studies. When blocking for the societal-level traits, each had more relevance for some, but not all, of the relationships between consumption and problems. Particularly striking was the welt-documented finding that per capita consumption of alcohol significantly distinguished the relationships of frequency of drinking and health problems (while the female suicide rate did not) and the previously undocumented finding that the female suicide rate significantly distinguished the relationships of both quantity and frequency with treatment (while the per capita consumption of alcohol did not). These findings suggest that the impact of norms and the impact of societal stress in groups have different but significant consequences for the relationships of consumption to problems.     

Aneurysmal Bone Cysts — Review of 10 Cases

10 cases of aneurysmal bone cyst of the tubular bones and pelvis in children aged between 6 and 11 years are reported. The differences between aneurysmal bone cysts in childhood, adolescence and adulthood are discussed.