Including Social and Behavioral Determinants in Predictive Models: Trends, Challenges, and Opportunities.

In an era of accelerated health information technology capability, health care organizations increasingly use digital data to predict outcomes such as emergency department use, hospitalizations, and health care costs. This trend occurs alongside a growing recognition that social and behavioral determinants of health (SBDH) influence health and medical care use. Consequently, health providers and insurers are starting to incorporate new SBDH data sources into a wide range of health care prediction models, although existing models that use SBDH variables have not been shown to improve health care predictions more than models that use exclusively clinical variables.

A Rare De Novo Myoepithelial Carcinoma Ex Pleomorphic Adenoma in a Young Woman.

Carcinoma ex pleomorphic adenoma, an uncommon neoplasm of the parotid gland, accounts for less than 4% of salivary gland tumors. It arises from a benign pleomorphic adenoma presenting in the sixth to eighth decades of life. We present this as a unique account of a primary parotid gland carcinoma, arising from myoepithelial cells, without a known precursor lesion, in a 28-year-old woman.

Prognostic factors that increase the risk for reduced white matter volumes and deficits in attention and learning for survivors of childhood cancers.

Objective: In children, CNS-directed cancer therapy is thought to result in decreased cerebral white matter volumes (WMV) and subsequent neurocognitive deficits. This study was designed as a prospective validation of the purported reduction in WMV, associated influential factors, and its relationship to neurocognitive deficits in a very large cohort of both acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and malignant brain tumors (BT) survivors in comparison to an age similar cohort of healthy sibling controls.

Procedures: The effects of host characteristics and CNS treatment intensity on WMV were investigated in 383 childhood cancer survivors (199 ALL, 184 BT) at least 12 months post-completion of therapy and 67 healthy siblings that served as a control group.

The good, the bad, and the ugly with alcohol use and abuse on the heart.

Since its advent, alcohol has been utilized throughout history socially, for rituals, worship, and for its therapeutic, antibacterial, and analgesic properties. In moderation, alcohol consumption and its use are generally viewed as clinically beneficial. Excessive alcohol consumption on the other hand has been recognized as having several adverse implications.