The global cancer divide: relationships between national healthcare resources and cancer outcomes in high-income vs. middle- and low-income countries.

Background: Cancer continues to rise as a contributor to premature death in the developing world. Despite this, little is known about whether cancer outcomes are related to a country's income level, and what aspects of national healthcare systems are associated with improved cancer outcomes.

Methods: The most recent estimates of cancer incidence and mortality were used to calculate mortality-to-incidence ratio (MIR) for the 85 countries with reliable data.

Malignant melanoma and radiotherapy: past myths, excellent local control in 146 studied lesions at Georgetown University, and improving future management.

Introduction: Once thought to be radioresistant, emerging cellular and clinical evidence now suggests melanoma can respond to large radiation doses per fraction.

Materials And Methods: We conducted a retrospective study of all patients treated with stereotactic radiosurgery and stereotactic body radiotherapy at Georgetown University Hospital from May 2002 through November 2008 and studied the classic extrapolated total dose corrected for volume (ETD(vol)) model for predicting melanoma tumor response. Region-specific tumor outcomes were categorized by RECIST criteria and local control curves were estimated and analyzed when stratified by ETD(vol) thresholds by use of the Kaplan-Meier method.

Evidence that low-grade systemic inflammation can induce islet dysfunction as measured by impaired calcium handling.

In obesity and the early stages of type 2 diabetes (T2D), proinflammatory cytokines are mildly elevated in the systemic circulation. This low-grade systemic inflammation exposes pancreatic islets to these circulating cytokines at much lower levels than seen within the islet during insulitis. These low-dose effects have not been well described.

Evidence of diminished glucose stimulation and endoplasmic reticulum function in nonoscillatory pancreatic islets.

Pulsatility is a fundamental feature of pancreatic islets and a hallmark of hormone secretion. Isolated pancreatic islets endogenously generate rhythms in secretion, metabolic activity, and intracellular calcium ([Ca(2+)](i)) that are important to normal physiological function. Few studies have directly compared oscillatory and nonoscillatory islets to identify possible differences in function.