Cetuximab, paclitaxel, carboplatin, and radiation for head and neck cancer: a toxicity analysis.

Objective: To determine the feasibility and toxicity of the addition of cetuximab to paclitaxel, carboplatin, and concurrent radiation for patients with head and neck cancer.

Materials And Methods: Patients with stage III or IV locally advanced squamous cell cancer of the head and neck, without distant organ metastases, were eligible. Patients received 4 weeks of induction cetuximab followed by weekly cetuximab, paclitaxel, carboplatin, and concurrent radiation.

Breast cancer risk and drinking water contaminated by wastewater: a case control study.

Background: Drinking water contaminated by wastewater is a potential source of exposure to mammary carcinogens and endocrine disrupting compounds from commercial products and excreted natural and pharmaceutical hormones. These contaminants are hypothesized to increase breast cancer risk. Cape Cod, Massachusetts, has a history of wastewater contamination in many, but not all, of its public water supplies; and the region has a history of higher breast cancer incidence that is unexplained by the population's age, in-migration, mammography use, or established breast cancer risk factors.

A low rate of central nervous system progression in a phase II trial of outpatient chemobiologic therapy with cisplatin, temozolomide, interleukin-2, and interferon alfa 2-B for metastatic malignant melanoma.

The objective of this study was to evaluate an outpatient chemobiotherapy regimen for metastatic melanoma that included an agent with central nervous system (CNS) antitumor activity. Patients without prior therapy for metastatic disease received 20 mg/m2 cisplatin intravenously on days 1 through 4, 100 mg/m2 temozolomide orally on days 1 through 5, concurrent with 5 MIU/m2 interferon alfa 2-B subcutaneously on days 1 through 5 and 10 MIU/m2 interleukin-2 subcutaneously on days 1 and 6 MIU/m2 subcutaneously on days 2 through 4. Treatment was given every 21 days to a maximum of 6 cycles.

Breast cancer risk and historical exposure to pesticides from wide-area applications assessed with GIS.

Pesticides are of interest in etiologic studies of breast cancer because many mimic estrogen, a known breast cancer risk factor, or cause mammary tumors in animals, but most previous studies have been limited by using one-time tissue measurements of residues of only a few pesticides long banned in the United States. As an alternative method to assess historical exposures to banned and current-use pesticides, we used geographic information system (GIS) technology in a population-based case-control study of 1,165 women residing in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, who were diagnosed with breast cancer in 1988-1995 and 1,006 controls. We assessed exposures dating back to 1948 (when DDT was first used there) from pesticides applied for tree pests (e.

Increased depth of subcutaneous fat is protective against abdominal injuries in motor vehicle collisions.

The objective of this study was to determine the effect of differences in subcutaneous fat depth on adult injury patterns in motor vehicle collisions. Sixty-seven consecutive adult crash subjects aged 19-65 who received computed tomography of their chest, abdomen and pelvis as part of their medical evaluation and who consented to inclusion in the Crash Injury Research Engineering Network (CIREN) study were included. Subcutaneous fat was measured just lateral to the rectus abdominus muscle in a transverse section taken through the subject at the level of L4.