Out-of-pocket health-care expenditures among older Americans with cancer.

Objective: There is currently limited information regarding the out-of-pocket expenditures (OOPE) for medical care made by elderly individuals with cancer. We sought to quantify OOPE for community-dwelling individuals age 70 or older with: 1) no cancer (No CA), 2) a history of cancer, not undergoing current treatment (CA/No Tx), and 3) a history of cancer, undergoing current treatment (CA/Tx).

Methods: We used data from the 1995 Asset and Health Dynamics Study, a nationally representative survey of community-dwelling elderly individuals.

The use of preferences to measure the benefit of adjuvant radiation therapy for stage I seminoma.

Purpose: In Stage I seminoma, treatment with radiation therapy (RT) after radical inguinal orchiectomy reduces the likelihood of relapse by 15%, but does not improve survival, thus making quality of life an important outcome measure. The purpose of this study was to use utilities to assess the quality of life benefits associated with adjuvant RT in this setting.

Materials And Methods: One hundred healthy men were interviewed using a utility assessment tool.

The axonal localization of large Drosophila ankyrin2 protein isoforms is essential for neuronal functionality.

In polarized cells, such as neurons, ankyrin-type proteins are the major molecules that link the actin-spectrin-based membrane cytoskeleton to the plasma membrane. In Drosophila the second ankyrin gene, Dank2, is exclusively expressed in neuronal cells. Similar to ankyrin genes in other organisms, the Dank2 gene generates several ankyrin protein isoforms by differential splicing.