DNA ploidy, S-phase, and steroid receptors in more than 127,000 breast cancer patients.

Several potential prognostic factors are available today for patients with breast cancer, and many more are being identified and studied. To evaluate the clinical utility of these factors, it will be necessary to measure them on a large number of patients, and then follow these patients so that multivariate survival analyses can be performed. The Oncology Research Network was established in 1986 by the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio and Nichols Institute Reference Laboratories in order to evaluate the clinical utility of new prognostic factors for patients with primary breast cancer.

How to integrate steroid hormone receptor, flow cytometric, and other prognostic information in regard to primary breast cancer.

A large group of patients with node-positive breast cancer was divided into a training set (n = 851) and a validation set (n = 432) to demonstrate techniques for integrating steroid hormone receptor status, DNA flow cytometric findings, and other prognostic factors to predict patient survival. Multivariate analyses showed that estrogen receptor status, the number of involved axillary lymph nodes, patient age, S-phase fraction, progesterone receptor status, and tumor size were significant predictors of survival in patients with node-positive breast cancer. Techniques for optimizing and validating a cut point for a new prognostic factor and for examining alternative representations of prognostic factors were demonstrated.

Antipanic drug treatments: failure to exhibit anxiolytic-like effects on defensive burying behavior.

Although the Defensive Burying paradigm has been used as a behavioral "model" for the study of anxiety and/or antianxiety agents, the effects of chronic treatment with antidepressant agents (i.e., "antipanic" agents) have not been examined in this paradigm.

Defensive burying behavior in maudsley reactive (MR/Har) and nonreactive (MNRA/Har) rats.

Based upon differences in open field and conflict behaviors, the MR/Har and MNRA/Har rat strains have been proposed as a genetically-based "animal model" for the study of emotionality and/or anxiety. The present study compared the MR/Har and MNRA/Har rat strains in the Defensive Burying paradigm. Prior to testing, female MR/Har and MNRA/Har rats were placed in a 40 X 30 X 40 cm Plexiglas chamber containing clay bedding material (5 cm deep) for 30 minute periods on each of four consecutive days.