Survival of invasive breast cancer according to the Nottingham Prognostic Index in cases diagnosed in 1990-1999.

Unlabelled: The Nottingham Prognostic Index (NPI) is a well established and widely used method of predicting survival of operable primary breast cancer.

Aims: Primary: To present the updated survival figures for each NPI Group. Secondary: From the observations to suggest reasons for the reported fall in mortality from breast cancer.

Reading the prognosis of the individual with breast cancer.

Aim: To obtain better survival estimates for the individual than is provided by placement in an NPI group.

Method: Consecutive primary operable breast cancers treated at Nottingham City Hospital 1990-1999. Ten year % actuarial survivals plotted for 10 ranges of NPI from 2.

A 7 year prospective comparative study of three topical beta blockers in the management of primary open angle glaucoma.

Aim: To determine the long term efficacy of monotherapy with topically applied beta blocking agents and to determine whether selective beta blockers were able to preserve the visual field more effectively than non-selective agents.

Method: A prospective randomised, open, comparative study of three topically applied beta blockers-timolol, betaxolol, and carteolol-was carried out on 153 patients (280 eyes) with newly diagnosed open angle glaucoma. Those patients who were not withdrawn were followed by the same observers for a minimum of 2 years and a maximum of 7 years, with clinical observations, Goldmann tonometry and 24.

Posterior scleritis: clinical features, systemic associations, and outcome in a large series of patients.

Objective: To document the clinical features, systemic associations, and visual outcome in a large number of patients with posterior scleritis.

Design: Retrospective, noncomparative case series.

Participants: There were 137 patient records showing patients with a diagnosis of posterior scleritis who were attending or had attended the scleritis clinic at Moorfields Eye Hospital between 1974 and 1996.

The use of the Gompertz function to relate changes in life expectancy to the standardized mortality ratio.

Background: Change in life expectancy may be more readily appreciated by a lay person as a measure of risk than the standardized mortality ratio (SMR).

Methods: The linear increase in the logarithm of the age-specific mortality rates with age (the Gompertz function) is used to deduce formulae connecting SMR with change in life expectancy. Their validity is checked by a comparison between the 1992 and 1952 mortality data for England and Wales, and between smokers and non-smokers in the American Cancer Society's second Cancer Prevention Study.

Life expectancy as a measurement of the benefit shown by clinical trials of treatment for early breast cancer.

Improvements in life expectancy could be a more readily appreciated measure of benefit from a clinical trial than relative risks, odds ratios or increases in survival rate at some arbitrary point in time. Parametric models of survival experience can be used to determine differences in life expectancy. Using the log-normal model, it is shown that the increases in 10-year survival rate found by the overviews of adjuvant systemic therapy trials in early breast cancer are consistent with only small overall increases in life expectancy of about 1 year for Stage I and about 2 years for Stage II.

Geographical variation in the standardized years of potential life lost ratio (SYPLR) in women dying from malignancies of the breast in England and Wales.

Geographical variation in the standardized years of potential life lost ratio (SYPLR) in women aged 20-74 dying from breast cancer has been mapped by local authority district in England and Wales and compared with the variation as described by the standardized mortality ratio (SMR). The geographical distribution of areas of low and high SMRs is similar to that observed some 15 years earlier, showing an increase from north to south. In contrast, the pattern of SYPLRs shows a less obvious trend.

Social class and weight as prognostic factors in early breast cancer.

Data from the Cancer Research Campaign trial for early breast cancer have been used to study the effect of social class and weight on prognosis after primary treatment either by a simple mastectomy plus post-operative radiotherapy or by a simple mastectomy followed by a watch policy. There were 2455 patients for whom both social class could be determined and weight was recorded. These patients presented in clinical stages I and II and were recruited between June 1970 and April 1975.

Should years lost always be equated with life expectancy?

Background: The 'years lost' by a person dying prematurely from some cause is usually equated with life expectancy at the age of death derived from a life table for either the general population or a population in which the cause does not operate. It is suggested that this procedure may not always be valid.

Methods: The calculation of years lost by individuals dying prematurely from smoking-related deaths is taken as an example using data from the American Cancer Society Cancer Prevention Study (ACS CPS II) and from Peto et al.

Role of radiotherapy following total mastectomy in patients with early breast cancer. The Closed Trials Working Party of the CRC Breast Cancer Trials Group.

Between June 1970 and April 1975 the CRC (King's/Cambridge) Trial for early breast cancer randomized 2800 patients following mastectomy to immediate prophylactic radiotherapy (DXT group, n = 1376) or control (WP group, n = 1424). Although no difference in overall survival has been demonstrated, there is an increase in mortality in the irradiated patients from nonbreast cancer causes beyond 5 years. It is because of an increase in the number of deaths due to new nonbreast malignancies [RR V 1.

Cardiac doses in post-operative breast irradiation.

Data were collected on radiation doses given to the heart and coronary arteries during primary breast irradiation in order to analyze factors which might be important in the aetiology of subsequent cardiac-related disease. Twenty eight patients with breast cancer were studied. Fourteen patients treated from 1957 to 1984 were studied retrospectively (group 1), and 14 treated from 1988 to 1989 were studied prospectively (group 2).

LOPP alternating with EVAP is superior to LOPP alone in the initial treatment of advanced Hodgkin's disease: results of a British National Lymphoma Investigation trial.

Purpose: The purpose of this randomized trial was to compare the efficacy of eight cycles of chlorambucil, vincristine, procarbazine, and prednisone (LOPP) with four cycles of LOPP that alternate with four cycles of etoposide, vinblastine, Adriamycin (doxorubicin; Familitalia Carlo Erba, Ltd, UK), and prednisone (EVAP) in patients with advanced Hodgkin's disease.

Patients And Methods: Between June 1983 and December 1989, 594 patients were entered onto the study. Of the 594, 295 patients were allocated to receive LOPP, and 299 were allocated to receive LOPP/EVAP.

A randomised trial of second-line hormone vs single agent chemotherapy in tamoxifen resistant advanced breast cancer.

Sixty patients with advanced breast cancer unresponsive to tamoxifen have been randomised to receive four course of mitozantrone, 14 mg m-2 (n = 30) intravenously every 3 weeks (9 weeks total) or megesterol acetate, 160 mg bd (n = 30). One in three patients (11 from each group) had substantial disease control for a minimum period of 6 months i.e.

Salvage surgery following irradiation with different fractionation regimes in the treatment of carcinoma of the laryngo pharynx: experience gained from a British Institute of Radiology study.

The 10-year follow-up of patients in a clinical trial involving the comparison of treatment by three fractions per week versus five fractions per week in radiotherapy of squamous carcinoma of the larynx and hypopharynx has now been completed. The trial involved an intake of 734 patients between 1966 and 1975. No statistically significant differences have been found between the two trial arms in terms of overall survival, age corrected survival, local recurrence, laryngectomy-free rates or effects on the normal tissues.

Normal tissue reactions in the British Institute of Radiology Study of 3 fractions per week versus 5 fractions per week in the treatment of carcinoma of the laryngo-pharynx by radiotherapy.

The radiobiological data obtained from a multicentre clinical trial of the British Institute of Radiology, which compared the treatment of carcinoma of the laryngo-pharynx by 3 fractions per week (3F/wk) with 5 fractions per week (5F/wk) radiotherapy, have been studied. The trial involved an intake of 734 patients between 1966 and 1975. The number of fractions, overall treatment time and total doses used by different treatment centres ranges from 9 to 40 fractions, 18 to 70 days and 3880 to 7800 cGy, respectively.

The predictive value of histological classification into degrees of differentiation of squamous cell carcinoma of the larynx and hypopharynx compared with the survival of patients.

In the course of running two clinical trials between 1966 and 1985, data became available for 1315 patients, 713 in the first trial and 602 patients in the second trial, which has allowed comparison between histological findings in laryngeal and hypopharyngeal carcinoma, the observed survival and the tumour-free rates for these patients who were followed for up to 10 years. Extensive histopathology reviews have revealed over 98% agreement on tumour cell type between the initial report and that of the reviewer. Highly significant differences have been found for squamous cell carcinoma between the observed survival and the tumour-free rates for patients with well-differentiated and with anaplastic lesions.

British National Lymphoma Investigation randomised study of MOPP (mustine, Oncovin, procarbazine, prednisolone) against LOPP (Leukeran substituted for mustine) in advanced Hodgkin's disease--long term results.

From 1979-1983, 299 patients with stage III or IV Hodgkin's disease (HD) were randomised to receive cyclical chemotherapy with MOPP (mustine, Oncovin, procarbazine, prednisone) or LOPP (Leukeran substituted for mustine). Two hundred and ninety patients were evaluable. There was no statistically significant difference between the complete remission (CR) rates (63% for MOPP, 57% for LOPP), percentage of patients remaining disease free at 5 years (38% for MOPP, 35% for LOPP) and overall survival at 5 years (65% for MOPP, 64% for LOPP).

Curability of breast cancer.

Three concepts of cure are defined--statistical, clinical and personal. The evidence for the curability of female breast cancer according to each of these concepts is examined. It is concluded that the presence of statistically or clinically cured groups of patients is not convincingly demonstrated in past series of treated patients, but that a quarter of such patients have experienced personal cure in that they died from some other cause without overt signs of breast cancer present.

Final report on the second British Institute of Radiology fractionation study: short versus long overall treatment times for radiotherapy of carcinoma of the laryngo-pharynx.

The second British Institute of Radiology trial of dose fractionation in radiotherapy compared two groups of prospectively randomized patients with squamous carcinoma of the laryngo-pharynx; one group was treated in a short (less than or equal to 4 weeks) and the other in a long (greater than 4 weeks) overall time. Treatment in any one centre could be given, with no planned gap in the course of treatment, either as a conventional, daily (5 fractions per week regime) or as 3 fractions per week. A total of 611 patients were allocated to treatment, of whom nine have had to be excluded from the analysis for a lack of information.

Recruitment, follow-up and analysis times in clinical trials of cancer treatment: a case study.

A study has been made of the way in which the number of events available for analysis in a clinical trial was dependent on the recruitment period, the maximum follow-up time on individual patients and the length of time between the start of the trial and its analysis. The events considered were deaths, local recurrences and late radiation effects on normal tissue in patients treated for cancer of the laryngo-pharynx by two different fractionation regimes. The relationship is demonstrated between the number of events and the 95% confidence intervals that can be placed on differences between results in the two arms of the trial.

The predictive value of tumor classification compared with results of the British Institute of Radiology fractionation trial in the treatment of laryngopharyngeal carcinoma.

Data from a clinical trial involving 734 patients have shown the value and the deficiencies of the current Union Internationale Contre le Cancer's tumor, node, and metastasis classification system for prognostic purposes. The tumor-category classification provides a good discriminant for both nodal involvement and survival; however, the previous node classification system only discriminated between node-negative and node-positive patients, as nodal fixity was not found to be a discriminator. The current anatomical site classification is ambiguous for some laryngeal and pharyngeal subsites, and modifications to the present system based on prognostic values are proposed.

Final report of the general clinical results of the British Institute of Radiology fractionation study of 3F/wk versus 5F/wk in radiotherapy of carcinoma of the laryngo-pharynx.

The 10 year follow-up of a clinical trial involving the comparison of 3F/wk versus 5F/wk in radiotherapy of squamous cell carcinoma of the larynx and hypopharynx has now been completed. The trial involved an intake of 734 patients between 1966 and 1975. The classification of all patients has been revised to conform with the latest TNM publication.