Urban heritages: how history and housing finance matter to housing form and homeownership rates

Contemporary Western cities are not uniform but display a variety of different housing forms and tenures, both between and within countries. We distinguish three general city types in this paper: low rise, single-family dwelling cities where owner-occupation is the most prevalent tenure form; multi-dwelling building cities where tenants comprise the majority and; multi-dwelling building cities where owner occupation is the principal tenure form. We argue that historical developments beginning in the nineteenth century are crucial to understanding this diversity in urban form and tenure composition across Western cities. Our path-dependent argument is twofold. First, we claim that different housing finance institutions engendered different forms of urban development during the late-nineteenth century and had helped to establish the difference between single-family dwelling cities and multi-dwelling building cities by 1914. Second, rather than stemming from countries’ welfare systems or ‘variety of capitalism’, we argue that these historical distinctions have a significant and enduring impact on today’s urban housing forms and tenures. Our argument is supported by a unique collection of data of 1095 historical cities across 27 countries

Primary pancreatic lymphoma – pancreatic tumours that are potentially curable without resection, a retrospective review of four cases

BACKGROUND: Primary pancreatic lymphomas (PPL) are rare tumours of the pancreas. Symptoms, imaging and tumour markers can mimic pancreatic adenocarcinoma, but they are much more amenable to treatment. Treatment for PPL remains controversial, particularly the role of surgical resection. METHODS: Four cases of primary pancreatic lymphoma were identified at Prince of Wales Hospital, Sydney, Australia. A literature review of cases of PPL reported between 1985 and 2005 was conducted, and outcomes were contrasted. RESULTS: All four patients presented with upper abdominal symptoms associated with weight loss. One case was diagnosed without surgery. No patients underwent pancreatectomy. All patients were treated with chemotherapy and radiotherapy, and two of four patients received rituximab. One patient died at 32 months. Three patients are disease free at 15, 25 and 64 months, one after successful retreatment. Literature review identified a further 103 patients in 11 case series. Outcomes in our series and other series of chemotherapy and radiotherapy compared favourably to surgical series. CONCLUSION: Biopsy of all pancreatic masses is essential, to exclude potentially curable conditions such as PPL, and can be performed without laparotomy. Combined multimodality treatment, utilising chemotherapy and radiotherapy, without surgical resection is advocated but a cooperative prospective study would lead to further improvement in treatment outcomes