Tardive dyskinesia: a 3-year follow-up study.

A prospective study of tardive dyskinesia was carried out to gain information regarding the natural history of the condition and to identify risk factors. Out of an original cohort of 182 psychiatric patients receiving maintenance antipsychotic drugs 99 were available for reassessment after 3 years. In this follow-up group the point prevalence of oro-facial dyskinesia increased from 39% to 47% over the 3-year period.

Should adjuvant chemotherapy be withheld from any patient with operable breast cancer?

We examined the clinical course of operable breast cancer and looked at what effect tumour size had on the probability of death from the disease. We analysed data from 1936 patients who were classified as having international stage I and II disease: decision theory was used to show a technique for determining the best strategy for adjuvant chemotherapy in the overall management of breast cancer.To evaluate this approach further, studies need to be designed to yield numerical values for the total morbidity of treatment on a scale from 0 to 100-the concept of utility loss-where 100 represents the maximum utility loss in patients in the early stages of disease.

Long term survival analysis: the curability of breast cancer.

Methods of survival analysis for long-term follow-up studies are illustrated by a study of mortality in 3878 breast cancer patients in Edinburgh followed for up to 20 years. The problems of life tables, advantages of hazard plots and difficulties in statistical modelling are demonstrated by studying the relationship between survival and both clinical stage and initial menopausal status at diagnosis. To assess the 'curability' of breast cancer, mortality by year of follow-up is compared with expected mortality using Scottish age-specific death rates.

Natural history of breast cancer.

Retrospective analysis was made of 3,918 cases of breast cancer seen during 1954-1964. Median survival was 4.5 years and 30% of patients survived through a 10-year period.