Cancer cluster investigations: review of the past and proposals for the future.

Residential clusters of non-communicable diseases are a source of enduring public concern, and at times, controversy. Many clusters reported to public health agencies by concerned citizens are accompanied by expectations that investigations will uncover a cause of disease. While goals, methods and conclusions of cluster studies are debated in the scientific literature and popular press, investigations of reported residential clusters rarely provide definitive answers about disease etiology.

Annual Report to the Nation on the status of cancer, 1975-2010, featuring prevalence of comorbidity and impact on survival among persons with lung, colorectal, breast, or prostate cancer.

Background: The American Cancer Society (ACS), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the National Cancer Institute (NCI), and the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries (NAACCR) collaborate annually to provide updates on cancer incidence and death rates and trends in these outcomes for the United States. This year's report includes the prevalence of comorbidity at the time of first cancer diagnosis among patients with lung, colorectal, breast, or prostate cancer and survival among cancer patients based on comorbidity level.

Methods: Data on cancer incidence were obtained from the NCI, the CDC, and the NAACCR; and data on mortality were obtained from the CDC.

Mode-specific vibrational relaxation of photoexcited guanosine 5'-monophosphate and its acid form: a femtosecond broadband mid-IR transient absorption and theoretical study.

UV-pump/broadband-mid-IR-probe transient absorption (TA) experiments and ab initio quantum mechanical (QM) calculations were used to investigate the photophysics in heavy water of the neutral and acid forms of guanosine 5'-monophosphate (GMP and GMPD(+), respectively). Excited GMP undergoes ultrafast internal conversion (IC) and returns to the electronic ground state in less than one picosecond with a large amount of excess vibrational energy. The spectroscopic signals are dominated by vibrational cooling - a process in which the solute dissipates vibrational energy to the solvent.

Depression as a risk factor for mortality in individuals with diabetes: a meta-analysis of prospective studies.

Objective: To quantify the impact of depression measured by self-reports and depression measured by clinical interview on all-cause mortality in individuals with diabetes and to analyze the strength of both associations, the influence of covariates, and possible differences between studies assessing self-rated depressive symptoms and those using a clinical interview to measure depression as predictors of mortality.

Research Design And Methods: PUBMED and PsycINFO were searched up to July 2013 for prospective studies assessing depression, diabetes and mortality. The pooled hazard ratios were calculated using random-effects models.

Ultrafast excited-state dynamics and vibrational cooling of 8-oxo-7,8-dihydro-2'-deoxyguanosine in D2O.

Nguyen and Burrows recently demonstrated that UV-B irradiation of 8-oxo-7,8-dihydro-2'-deoxyguanosine (8-oxodG), a signature product of oxidatively damaged DNA, can repair cyclobutane pyrimidine dimers in double-stranded DNA (J. Am. Chem.

Structural brain abnormalities in cervical dystonia.

Background: Idiopathic cervical dystonia is characterized by involuntary spasms, tremors or jerks. It is not restricted to a disturbance in the basal ganglia system because non-conventional voxel-based MRI morphometry (VBM) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) have detected numerous regional changes in the brains of patients.In this study scans of 24 patients with cervical dystonia and 24 age-and sex-matched controls were analysed using VBM, DTI and magnetization transfer imaging (MTI) using a voxel-based approach and a region-of-interest analysis.

Semi-automatic vortex extraction in 4D PC-MRI cardiac blood flow data using line predicates.

Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are the leading cause of death worldwide. Their initiation and evolution depends strongly on the blood flow characteristics. In recent years, advances in 4D PC-MRI acquisition enable reliable and time-resolved 3D flow measuring, which allows a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the patient-specific hemodynamics.

Mechanical characterization of nanoporous materials by use of atomic force acoustic microscopy methods.

We have used the atomic force acoustic microscopy (AFAM) method to determine the indentation modulus of nanoporous thin-film materials with ultralow values of dielectric permittivity (dielectric constant k < 2.4). The AFAM method is based on the contact mode of atomic force microscopy (AFM) and as such is able to characterize materials with high spatial resolution.

Ultrafast excited-state dynamics in hexaethyleneglycol-linked DNA homoduplexes made of A·T base pairs.

Double-stranded DNA conjugates with the sequence (dA)10·(dT)10 and hexaethylene glycol linkers at one end (hairpin) or both ends (dumbbell) were studied in buffer solution by deep UV femtosecond transient absorption spectroscopy. These covalently constrained duplexes have greatly enhanced thermal stability compared to A·T duplex oligonucleotides that lack linkers. The conjugates eliminate the slipped-strand and end-frayed structures that form readily in unlinked (dA)n·(dT)n sequences, allowing the excited-state dynamics of stacked A·T base pairs to be observed without interference from structures with stacking or pairing defects.

Hydrogen bond donors accelerate vibrational cooling of hot purine derivatives in heavy water.

Natural nucleobases and many of their derivatives have ultrashort excited state lifetimes that make them excellent model systems for studying intermolecular energy flow from a hot solute molecule to the solvent. UV-pump/broadband-mid-IR-probe transient absorption spectra of canonical purine nucleobases and several xanthine derivatives were acquired in D2O and acetonitrile in the probe frequency range of 1500-1750 cm(-1). The spectra reveal that vibrationally hot ground state molecules created by ultrafast internal conversion return to thermal equilibrium in several picoseconds by dissipating their excess energy to solvent molecules.

Sequence-dependent thymine dimer formation and photoreversal rates in double-stranded DNA.

The kinetics of thymine-thymine cyclobutane pyrimidine dimer (TT-CPD) formation was studied at 23 thymine-thymine base steps in two 247-base pair DNA sequences irradiated at 254 nm. Damage was assayed site-specifically and simultaneously on both the forward and reverse strands by detecting emission from distinguishable fluorescent labels at the 5'-termini of fragments cleaved at CPD sites by T4 pyrimidine dimer glycosylase and separated by gel electrophoresis. The total DNA strand length of nearly 1000 bases made it possible to monitor damage at all 9 tetrads of the type XTTY, where X and Y are non-thymine bases.

Evaluation of different diagnostic tools for the detection and identification of Riemerella anatipestifer.

Riemerella anatipestifer (RA) is an important avian pathogen with considerable impact on poultry production worldwide. However, the diagnosis of RA infections may be difficult, mainly due to problems with unequivocal differentiation of RA from other Flavobacteriaceae and a lack of standardized methods and reagents. The aim of the present study was therefore to complement the routine diagnostic strategies for RA by design and evaluation of alternative diagnostic tools.

Annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer, 1975-2009, featuring the burden and trends in human papillomavirus(HPV)-associated cancers and HPV vaccination coverage levels.

Background: The American Cancer Society (ACS), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the National Cancer Institute (NCI), and the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries (NAACCR) collaborate annually to provide updates on cancer incidence and death rates and trends in these outcomes for the United States. This year's report includes incidence trends for human papillomavirus (HPV)-associated cancers and HPV vaccination (recommended for adolescents aged 11-12 years).

Methods: Data on cancer incidence were obtained from the CDC, NCI, and NAACCR, and data on mortality were obtained from the CDC.

Characteristic quantities of corneal epithelial structures in confocal laser scanning microscopic volume data sets.

Purpose: Fully automated quantification of the morphologic features of different epithelial cell layers in healthy human corneas.

Methods: In vivo confocal laser scanning microscopy was performed on the unilateral eyes of 6 healthy volunteers. Stacks of 160 images (400 × 400 μm) with an interslice distance of 0.

Dietary hyperthyroidism in dogs.

Objectives: Evaluation of dogs with elevated plasma thyroxine concentration fed raw food before and after changing the diet.

Method: Between 2006 and 2011 all dogs presented with an elevated plasma thyroxine concentration and a dietary history of feeding raw food were included. Thyroxine (reference interval: 19·3 to 51·5 nmol/L) and in many cases also thyroid-stimulating hormone concentrations (reference interval: <0·30 ng/mL) were measured initially and after changing the diet.

Base-stacking disorder and excited-state dynamics in single-stranded adenine homo-oligonucleotides.

Single-stranded adenine homo-oligonucleotides were investigated in aqueous solution by femtosecond transient absorption spectroscopy in order to study the effect of strand length on the nature and dynamics of excited states formed by UV absorption. Global fitting analysis of bleach recovery signals recorded at a probe wavelength of 250 nm and pH 7 reveals that the same lifetimes of 2.72 and 183 ps reproduce the pronounced biexponential decays observed in all (dA)n oligomers, containing between 2 and 18 residues.

DSD and Professionalism from a Multilateral View: Supplementing the Consensus Statement on the Basis of a Qualitative Survey.

Treatment and support of a child with DSD calls for experience and expertise in diagnosis, surgical techniques, understanding of psychosocial issues, and recognizing and accepting the significance of individual values of children, families, and support groups. The range of what is considered "appropriate" care and treatment is still very broad and critics point at major gaps between ethical guidelines and current clinical practice. Based on a qualitative study with 27 members of multidisciplinary teams and support groups, we supplement the professional consensus statements and current ethical guidelines with 14 requirements from four different perspectives, to characterize more fully the responsible treatment and support of children and families affected by DSD.

Mutans streptococci and caries prevalence in children after early maternal caries prevention: a follow-up at 19 years of age.

Aim: The efficacy of early maternal caries prevention was evaluated. Furthermore, the difference between children colonised with mutans streptococci (MS) at an early or late stage with regard to the prevalence of carious lesions was determined.

Methods: The children of first-time mothers selected on the basis of high salivary levels of MS for participation in a caries prevention programme were recalled at the age of 19 years.

[Treatment of differentiated thyroid cancer].

The prevalence of thyroid cancer is steadily rising and the fortuitous discovery of a thyroid nodule is a frequent situation for the clinician. The clinical importance is the need to exclude thyroid cancer. In this article we present the initial work up and treatment options for differentiated thyroid cancer.