A century of trends in adult human height

Being taller is associated with enhanced longevity, and higher education and earnings. We reanalysed 1472 population-based studies, with measurement of height on more than 18.6 million participants to estimate mean height for people born between 1896 and 1996 in 200 countries. The largest gain in adult height over the past century has occurred in South Korean women and Iranian men, who became 20.2 cm (95% credible interval 17.5-22.7) and 16.5 cm (13.3-19.7) taller, respectively. In contrast, there was little change in adult height in some sub-Saharan African countries and in South Asia over the century of analysis. The tallest people over these 100 years are men born in the Netherlands in the last quarter of 20th century, whose average heights surpassed 182.5 cm, and the shortest were women born in Guatemala in 1896 (140.3 cm; 135.8-144.8). The height differential between the tallest and shortest populations was 19-20 cm a century ago, and has remained the same for women and increased for men a century later despite substantial changes in the ranking of countries

Radiation-induced Neurocognitive Dysfunction in Head and Neck Cancer Patients

It might seem odd that a special issue about Gianni Bonadonna would publish a review on radiation-induced neurocognitive dysfunction. Dr. Gianni Bonadonna is considered a pioneer in medical oncology history, mainly due to new and revolutionary treatment approaches proposed in breast cancer and Hodgkin lymphoma. He had an active role in the field of medical oncology, especially through lectures and textbooks. He shared his considerable insight of understanding cancer behavior and evaluating research advances over the years to prevent tumor recurrence and preserve patients from unnecessary toxicity. From a theoretical point of view, this complex vision is valid for all malignancies and can be indirectly shifted to every primary cancer, including head and neck cancer (HNC). During the last decades, multidisciplinary treatment for HNC has improved clinical outcomes but makes acute and late toxicity challenging. This article highlights the main central nervous structures that have a major impact on the development of neurocognitive dysfunction after radiotherapy for HNC. We briefly summarize the specific structure contouring instructions and the dose-volume histogram parameters. The aim is to raise awareness in clinicians in defining normal tissues to optimize radiotherapy regimens

Normal Tissue Complication Probability (NTCP) Modelling of Severe Acute Mucositis using a Novel Oral Mucosal Surface Organ at Risk

Aims: A normal tissue complication probability (NTCP) model of severe acute mucositis would be highly useful to guide clinical decision making and inform radiotherapy planning. We aimed to improve upon our previous model by using a novel oral mucosal surface organ at risk (OAR) in place of an oral cavity OAR. Materials and methods: Predictive models of severe acute mucositis were generated using radiotherapy dose to the oral cavity OAR or mucosal surface OAR and clinical data. Penalised logistic regression and random forest classification (RFC) models were generated for both OARs and compared. Internal validation was carried out with 100-iteration stratified shuffle split cross-validation, using multiple metrics to assess different aspects of model performance. Associations between treatment covariates and severe mucositis were explored using RFC feature importance. Results: Penalised logistic regression and RFC models using the oral cavity OAR performed at least as well as the models using mucosal surface OAR. Associations between dose metrics and severe mucositis were similar between the mucosal surface and oral cavity models. The volumes of oral cavity or mucosal surface receiving intermediate and high doses were most strongly associated with severe mucositis. Conclusions: The simpler oral cavity OAR should be preferred over the mucosal surface OAR for NTCP modelling of severe mucositis. We recommend minimising the volume of mucosa receiving intermediate and high doses, where possible. (C) 2016 The Royal College of Radiologists. Published by Elsevier Ltd