Surgical margins and survival after head and neck cancer surgery

BACKGROUND: Mixed results exist as to whether positive surgical margins impact survival. The aim of this study was to determine whether positive surgical margins are indeed associated with decreased survival in patients with primary head and neck cancer. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective cohort study of 261 cases diagnosed with cancer of the larynx or tongue between 1995 and 1999. Cases were followed through December 31, 2002. Survival curves by margin status were generated by Kaplan-Meier methods. Categorical data were evaluated with odds ratios (OR). RESULTS: All-cause mortality was markedly higher in cases with positive margins as compared with those with negative margins (54% versus 29%, P = 0.005). This pattern also appeared after adjusting for age and sex (OR = 2.97, 95% CI: 1.29 – 6.84). CONCLUSION: Our findings suggest that positive surgical margin status is associated with increased mortality. This association also generally persists after adjustment for tumor size, stage, and adjuvant therapy

The Grizzly, November 2, 2000

Students Rally to End Sexual Assault, Violence • Homecoming Case Closed, all Charges Dropped • Scuffle at Duryea Still Being Investigated • UC House of Horrors: Children Enjoy Ghoulish Experience • Operation Christmas Child • Goldstein Appointed Hillel Director • Study Abroad in London, Florence Next Fall • Annual Halloween Decorating Contest Winners Announced • Opinions: Where\u27s the Rush? Shortening of Rushing Activities has Some Greeks Angry, Upset; Up in Smoke: Non-smokers Fed up with UC Students Lighting up; Gore Does More to Combat Hate Crimes; Are we too old for Halloween?; A Vote for Al Gore is a Vote for our Future; Don\u27t Waste Your Vote on Majority Party Candidates, Elect Nader Nov. 7; Amidst Campus Safety Concerns, are IDs the Answer?; Rewards of Mideast Outweigh Risks for one UC Student • Students Make MTV Debut on \u27Total Request Live\u27 • Gone with the Wind: Bears Drop Heartbreaker to Mules on Blustery Day • It\u27s Madness!: Hoops Squad Scores Big with Annual Slam-dunk, Kick-off Festivities • Volleyball Drops Season Finale to Conference Rival • Men\u27s Soccer Falls to Fords • Men\u27s Lacrosse Gears up for Spring Season • Breast Cancer: What College Students Need to Know • Annual Health Fair Acquires new Name, Attitude • Tips for Female Lifters to Make it big in the Weight Room • Bears Field Hockey Rocks Rider, Finishes Season with Patriot League Win • XC Takes on WMC Course at Conference Champshttps://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/grizzlynews/1477/thumbnail.jp

New genetic loci implicated in fasting glucose homeostasis and their impact on type 2 diabetes risk.

Levels of circulating glucose are tightly regulated. To identify new loci influencing glycemic traits, we performed meta-analyses of 21 genome-wide association studies informative for fasting glucose, fasting insulin and indices of beta-cell function (HOMA-B) and insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) in up to 46,186 nondiabetic participants. Follow-up of 25 loci in up to 76,558 additional subjects identified 16 loci associated with fasting glucose and HOMA-B and two loci associated with fasting insulin and HOMA-IR. These include nine loci newly associated with fasting glucose (in or near ADCY5, MADD, ADRA2A, CRY2, FADS1, GLIS3, SLC2A2, PROX1 and C2CD4B) and one influencing fasting insulin and HOMA-IR (near IGF1). We also demonstrated association of ADCY5, PROX1, GCK, GCKR and DGKB-TMEM195 with type 2 diabetes. Within these loci, likely biological candidate genes influence signal transduction, cell proliferation, development, glucose-sensing and circadian regulation. Our results demonstrate that genetic studies of glycemic traits can identify type 2 diabetes risk loci, as well as loci containing gene variants that are associated with a modest elevation in glucose levels but are not associated with overt diabetes

Detection of gene pathways with predictive power for breast cancer prognosis

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Prognosis is of critical interest in breast cancer research. Biomedical studies suggest that genomic measurements may have independent predictive power for prognosis. Gene profiling studies have been conducted to search for predictive genomic measurements. Genes have the inherent pathway structure, where pathways are composed of multiple genes with coordinated functions. The goal of this study is to identify gene pathways with predictive power for breast cancer prognosis. Since our goal is fundamentally different from that of existing studies, a new pathway analysis method is proposed.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The new method advances beyond existing alternatives along the following aspects. First, it can assess the predictive power of gene pathways, whereas existing methods tend to focus on model fitting accuracy only. Second, it can account for the joint effects of multiple genes in a pathway, whereas existing methods tend to focus on the marginal effects of genes. Third, it can accommodate multiple heterogeneous datasets, whereas existing methods analyze a single dataset only. We analyze four breast cancer prognosis studies and identify 97 pathways with significant predictive power for prognosis. Important pathways missed by alternative methods are identified.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The proposed method provides a useful alternative to existing pathway analysis methods. Identified pathways can provide further insights into breast cancer prognosis.</p

“It Was a Scene of Life in the Rough”: Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Paracinema

Jeffrey Sconce defined paracinema (“a most elastic textual category”) as a term that houses nearly every conceivable (non-pornographic) film subgenre of ill-repute. For Sconce, paracinema was “less a distinct group of films than a particular reading protocol.” In many ways, paracinema’s elasticity and approach to critique mirrors that of Susan Sontag’s articulation of Camp (“A sensibility”). What both concepts reveal, however, is a perspective into the history of taste as a critical feature of culture in the United States—something taking root in the highbrow/lowbrow debates in America catalyzed around the nineteenth century’s theater and publishing industries. Firmly in the center of it all was Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville; their literature and their legacies. Therefore, by tracing how matters of taste transformed American culture in ways that directly impacted how we conceived of and adapted the literature of Hawthorne and Melville, I bring paracinema (and its Camp tendrils) into focus to analyze two specific adaptations of their works: Twice-Told Tales (1963), starring Vincent Price, and Asylum Pictures’ (of Sharknado fame) 2010: Moby Dick (2010, naturally). The result is a critical insight into two otherwise unremarkable films that helps provide a backward glance at taste and its transformations over the past few centuries in the United States