Delayed-immediate breast reconstruction: An assessment of complications and outcomes in the context of anticipated post-mastectomy radiotherapy.

Introduction: The detrimental effects of post-mastectomy radiotherapy on breast reconstruction are well known. We report our experience with a delayed-immediate approach involving an initial subcutaneous implant with definitive reconstruction after adjuvant radiotherapy.

Methods: Patients were identified retrospectively from hospital, theatre and implant registry records.

Rates of Bile Acid Diarrhoea After Cholecystectomy: A Multicentre Audit.

Introduction: Bile acid diarrhoea (BAD) can occur due to disruption to the enterohepatic circulation, e.g. following cholecystectomy.

Partner Conflict and Support as Moderators of Alcohol Use on Alcohol Problems and Marital Satisfaction in Young Adult Marital Dyads.

Background: This cross-sectional study used data from 483 young adult marital dyads to evaluate conflict-with-partner and support-from-partner as moderators of alcohol use on 2 outcomes: alcohol problems and marital satisfaction. A path analytic modeling approach was used to test stress-exacerbating and stress-buffering hypotheses, and to accommodate the interdependent nature of the dyadic data.

Methods: This cross-sectional sample was selected from an adolescent-to-young adult longitudinal study in which spouses were recruited into the study during a later young adult assessment when the sample was, on average, 32.

Sex Differences in Peer Selection and Socialization for Alcohol Use from Adolescence to Young Adulthood and the Influence of Marital and Parental Status.

Background: Peer selection and socialization influences for alcohol and other substance use have been a prominent area of research especially, though not exclusively, across adolescence. This study used 4-wave prospective data from 1,004 young adults to evaluate selection and socialization influences for young adults' alcohol use and friends' alcohol use from late adolescence to later young adulthood, and incorporated the time-varying predictors of marital and parental status. In addition, sex differences in peer selection and socialization processes were tested.

Parental Divorce and Family History of Alcohol Disorder: Associations with Young Adults' Alcohol Problems, Marijuana Use, and Interpersonal Relations.

Background: This study used prospective data from 706 young adults to evaluate the impact of parental divorce and family history of alcoholism (FH+) on the outcomes of offspring alcohol problems, marijuana use, and interpersonal relationships with parents.

Methods: Assessments of parental divorce were based on parent reports, and young adult outcomes were collected from an offspring cohort (n = 706; X age = 33.25 years; females = 53%) via computer-based individual interviews (CAPI and ACASI).

Adolescent precursors of young adult drinking motives.

Introduction: Numerous cross-sectional and shorter-term longitudinal studies have supported the role of drinking motives as potent proximal predictors of alcohol phenotypes (e.g., alcohol use, heavy episodic drinking).

A prospective study of mutual influence for substance use among young adult marital dyads.

The purpose of this 2-wave longitudinal study was to specify, test, and evaluate an actor-partner interdependence model (APIM) with young adult marital dyads to test husbands' and wives' mutual influences on each other's substance use. Prospective data were collected from young adults and their spouses at baseline and 5 years later. Data from 237 dyads were used to test spouses' interdependence on alcohol use, alcohol problems, and marijuana use with the APIMs.

The Measurement of Adolescent Alcohol Problems via Item Response Theory and Their 15-Year Prospective Associations with Alcohol and Other Psychiatric Disorders.

Background: A limited number of measures exist to assess alcohol problems during adolescence. Item response theory modeling was used to scale a measure of adolescent alcohol problems, including drinking and driving, and then related to alcohol and other psychiatric disorders that occurred over a 15-year period.

Methods: High school students (N = 832) completed the 13-item Alcohol Problems Index (API) at age 18 years as part of a long-term longitudinal study of predictors of alcohol use and alcohol disorders.

A comparison of electronic portal dosimetry verification methods for use in stereotactic radiotherapy.

Three methods of transit dosimetry using Electronic Portal Imaging Devices (EPIDs) were investigated for use in routine in-vivo dosimetry for cranial stereotactic radiosurgery and radiotherapy. The approaches examined were (a) A full Monte Carlo (MC) simulation of radiation transport through the linear accelerator and patient; (b) Calculation of the expected fluence by a treatment planning system (TPS); (c) Point doses calculated along the central axis compared to doses calculated using parameters acquired using the EPID. A dosimetric comparison of each of the three methods predicted doses at the imager plane to within ±5% and a gamma comparison for the MC and TPS based approaches showed good agreement for a range of dose and distance to agreement criteria.

A prospective study of stressful events, coping motives for drinking, and alcohol use among middle-aged adults.

Objective: This prospective study investigated moderator variable models of the interrelationships among stressful events, coping motives for drinking, and current alcohol use on subsequent alcohol use across a 5-year window with middle-aged adults.

Method: Data from women (n = 716; M(age) = 55.29 years at baseline) and men (n = 505; M(age) = 57.

A prospective study of alcohol use among middle-aged adults and marital partner influences on drinking.

Objective: The purpose of this three-wave longitudinal study was twofold. First, prevalence data on alcohol characteristics (e.g.

Recurrent depression, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes among middle-aged and older adult women.

Background: The goal of this study was to investigate the concurrent and prospective relationships between a history of single and recurrent major depression disorder (MDD) and the medical conditions of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and diabetes using a community sample of middle- and older-aged women.

Methods: Data from women (n=557 at baseline; mean age=55.7 years) participating in a two-wave longitudinal study (5-year interval) were used to examine associations between single and recurrent MDD, assessed with a structured clinical interview, and three self-report indicators of CVD (heart attack or myocardial infarction, stroke, angina), major CVD risk markers (hypertension, high cholesterol), and diabetes.

Testing the specificity between social anxiety disorder and drinking motives.

This study tested the specificity of the relationship between social anxiety disorder (SAD) and coping drinking motives (versus enhancement drinking motives and social drinking motives) within the context of a range of potentially confounding variables measured during adolescence (e.g., quantity and frequency of alcohol use, coping drinking motives) and substantively important variables assessed during young adulthood (e.

Predicting young adulthood smoking among adolescent smokers and nonsmokers.

Objective: To examine predictors of smoking in young adulthood among (1) adolescent nonsmokers and (2) adolescent smokers.

Methods: Data were analyzed from a longitudinal study of adolescents to young adulthood in 1988-1998.

Results: Predictors of smoking in young adulthood among adolescent nonsmokers included less education, being unmarried in adulthood, lower family social support, non-smoking parents, and increased alcohol use over time.

Intergenerational relations for drinking motives: invariant for same- and opposite-sex parent-child dyads?

Objective: The purpose of this study was to investigate the similarity or dissimilarity of same-sex (e.g., mother-daughter) and opposite-sex (e.

Early onset problem behaviors and alcohol, tobacco, and other substance use disorders in young adulthood.

Objective: Ten early onset problem behaviors were used to prospectively predict alcohol, tobacco, cannabis, and cocaine disorders in young adulthood (mean age=28.6 yrs) for a U.S.

Adolescent-to-young adulthood heavy drinking trajectories and their prospective predictors.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to investigate longitudinal trajectories of heavy drinking for males and females from adolescence to young adulthood, across the age span of 16-25 years, and to identify prospective predictors of the trajectory groups identified.

Method: This study used semiparametric group-based mixture modeling to derive adolescent to young adult longitudinal trajectories of heavy drinking separately for 760 participants (430 females and 330 males) who have been participating in a long-term prospective study of risk factors for the development of heavy drinking and alcohol disorders.

Results: Four trajectory groups were identified for males and five for females; the trajectories indicated both continuity and change in heavy drinking across time for the trajectory groups identified.

Collecting longitudinal data through childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood: methodological challenges.

This article presents the proceedings of a workshop at the 2003 Research Society on Alcoholism meeting in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The organizers and chairs were Vivian Faden and Nancy Day. The presentations were (1) Lessons Learned From the Lives Across Time Longitudinal Study, by Michael Windle and Rebecca Windle; (2) Methodological Issues in Longitudinal Surveys With Children and Adolescents, by Joel Grube; (3) The Pittsburgh ADHD Longitudinal Study: Methodological and Conceptual Challenges, by Brooke Molina, William Pelham, Elizabeth Gnagy, and Tracey Wilson; and (4) Lessons learned in Conducting Longitudinal Research on Alcohol Involvement: If Only I Had Known Before Hand! by Kristina Jackson and Kenneth Sher.