A yearlong monitoring campaign of polycyclic aromatic compounds and other air pollutants at three sites in Sweden: Source identification, in vitro toxicity and human health risk assessment.

Air pollution is a complex mixture of gases and particulate matter (PM) with local and non-local emission sources, resulting in spatiotemporal variability in concentrations and composition, and thus associated health risks. To study this in the greater Stockholm area, a yearlong monitoring campaign with in situ measurements of PM, PM, black carbon, NO, O, and PM-sampling was performed. The locations included an Urban and a Rural background site and a Highway site.

The 20-core prostate biopsy protocol--a new gold standard?

Purpose: We investigated the ability of a 20-core prostate biopsy protocol to enhance the prostate cancer diagnosis rate.

Materials And Methods: We compared the diagnosis rate of prostate biopsies in 2 groups of consecutive patients, including group 1-10 cores and group 2-20 cores. The prostate specific antigen range in the 2 groups was 3 to 30 ng/ml and biopsies were performed because of increased prostate specific antigen (more than 3 ng/ml) and/or abnormal digital rectal examination.

Prostate cancer characteristics in a multiracial community.

Objectives: To investigate the hypothesis that Northern Africans differ from Caucasians with regard to their PCa characteristics, using our 1988-2006 database we retrospectively reviewed the preoperative and pathological features of consecutive patients subjected to radical prostatectomy (RP) for localized prostate cancer (PCa) and stratified according to their ethnic origin.

Methods: In 727 consecutive patients (616 Caucasians; 61 Blacks originating from Central Africa and the French West Indies; 50 Northern Africans from Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia), we preoperatively analyzed and compared age, clinical stage of the tumour, prostate-specific antigen (PSA), transrectal ultrasound prostate volume, PSA density (PSAD), biopsy Gleason score, number of positive cores (NPC), and percentage of tissue core invaded by cancer (PTIC); postoperatively, we determined the status of the capsule, seminal vesicles, and margins of the RP specimen, as well as Gleason score and prostate weight. Statistical analyses (chi-square test and ANOVA) were performed to compare the results between the three groups of patients.

[Corneal epithelial diseases related to limbal stem cell deficiency].

Treatment of corneal epithelial diseases induced by limbal stem cell deficiency is an important challenge in ocular surface reconstruction. Since the 1990s, corneal stem cells have been localized in the limbus. This new concept completely changed the way we consider ocular surface reconstruction, with new diseases now found to be isolated in the ocular surface.

Prostate saturation biopsy in the reevaluation of microfocal prostate cancer.

Purpose: We evaluated the ability of an extended, 32-core repeat transrectal ultrasound prostate biopsy protocol to improve the characterization of low volume, well differentiated disease in men with a diagnosis of potentially insignificant microfocal prostate cancer, as defined by 1 single focus positive core of 10 with less than 5 mm of Gleason score 6 or less tumor on primary biopsy.

Materials And Methods: A total of 35 consecutive patients, who were 62 to 75 years old, had a median serum prostate specific antigen of 8 ng/ml (range 0.5 to 14) and a diagnosis of minimal prostate cancer, and were willing to consider observation with delayed treatment at progression, were offered repeat saturation prostate biopsy with a median of 32 cores (range 18 to 36) under local anesthesia.