Search

Cisplatin and 5-fluorouracil act as radiosensitizers and are active cytotoxic drugs in head and neck cancer. Therefore, from May 1987 to June 1990, we gave a continuous course of radiotherapy (70 Gy/35 fractions/7 weeks) combined with the simultaneous administration, once a week, of cisplatin (40 mg/m2, i.v. bolus) and 5-fluorouracil (400 mg/m2, i.v. bolus) to 21 patients with locally advanced or recurrent tumors of the head and neck. The complete and partial response rates were 65% and 15%, respectively. With a median follow-up of 17 months (range: 4-42) and with 19/21 patients having stages III and IV tumors, 12 patients are NED (no evidence of disease), 8 died with tumor, and 1 died of bronchopneumonia during the treatment. The main toxicity was mucositis and the median length of therapy was higher than with irradiation alone. This regimen appears very encouraging and could be an improvement over radiation alone for patients with locally advanced head and neck cancer.

This work is concerned with the design of time invariant analog circuits for processing the signals from deep n-well monolithic CMOS sensors. As compared to the three-transistor front-end typically used in imaging applications, the schemes proposed here, which were conceived to be included in a binary readout channel, lend themselves to pixel-level sparsified readout and are expected to be capable of managing the large flow of data anticipated for the future high luminosity colliding machines. Various solutions complying with different power dissipation and point resolution constraints have been implemented in a 130 nm CMOS technology, paying particular attention to equivalent noise charge and threshold dispersion performance. This paper intends to describe and compare the features of the different approaches by means of theoretical analysis, simulation and experimental results.

The risk of developing breast cancer was investigated in 339 patients in whom histologically confirmed intraductal papilloma had been surgically removed. Follow-up ranged from 2 to 14 years, (average, 6.62 years). Ten breast cancers were observed, whereas 3 were expected on the basis of age-specific incidence rates drawn from local cancer registries (relative risk = 3.33, 95% confidence interval = 1.60-6.13). No significant difference in the relative risk was observed as far as papilloma type (single or multiple) was concerned. All breast cancers observed occurred in the same breast as the papilloma. Women in whom a benign intraductal papilloma has been excised should be carefully followed since they at are higher risk for ipsilateral breast cancer.

1500 Background: Primary prevention trials have shown that tamoxifen (T) lowers ER+ breast cancer (BC) incidence, but adverse events are a barrier to its broad use. The Italian Tamoxifen Prevention Trial showed a positive risk/benefit ratio in the subgroup of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) users in the T arm, with fewer BC and no cardiovascular disease (CVD) excess. In a dose-ranging study, T 5 mg/day showed a favorable biomarker modulation in HRT users. We conducted a multicentre, phase III, BC prevention trial in current or de novo HRT users, randomized to either T 5 mg/day or placebo (P) for 5 yrs, with 5yrs follow-up. Methods: The study was powered to detect a 40% decrease of BC on T from an annual rate of 4/1000 on P with 20% dropout and 5y recruitment. All analyses were performed on ITT basis. The cumulative incidence of events was determined using Kaplan-Meier methods. The two treatment groups were compared by using the log-rank test. Hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals were obtained using Cox proportional regression model. All P values were two-sided. Results: Due to the WHI-HRT trial results, recruitment was lower than anticipated, with a total of 1884 subjects being randomized (946 P and 938 T arm, respectively). 79% were >50 years old at study entry. 66% were normal weight, 21% were hysterectomized; 80% were already on HRT at baseline, 53% were on trasdermal route and 28% had 5y-Gail risk>1.5%. At 7.7y mean follow-up, 43 BC were diagnosed, 24 (annual rate 4.1/1000) on P and 19 (3.3/1000) on T (HR 0.80, 95%CI 0.44-1.46). The efficacy of T was greater in luminal-A type (HR=0.32, 95% CI, 012-086). CVD events were rare (including 1 DVT on T), with no statistical difference between arms. A HR of 4.74 (95% CI, 1.96-11.5) was observed for benign endometrial polyps, but no increase of uterine cancers (3 on P vs 1 on T). Menopausal symptoms were more frequent on T, whereas headache was less frequent on T. Conclusions: The combination of low-dose T and HRT is safe and provides a promising way to retain the benefits while reducing the risks of either agent. While the insufficient power of our study prevents firmer conclusions, it supports further studies of low-dose T in the prevention setting.

Clinical observations were made of 42 children with bilateral idiopathic progressive sensorineural hearing loss considering hearing loss distribution in relation to age at onset, audiometric features, audiologic characteristics and possible correlation with some haematochemical alterations. Patients were divided into 2 groups on the basis of hearing onset: Group I, 0-6 years; Group II, 7-14 years. A peak in the distribution of onset age was observed in the range of 4-6 years. In most cases a 'descending' curve was recognized accompanied by recruitment. The haematochemical tests only suggested a possible correlation between hearing loss and anaemia. Finally, no significant difference of incidence between the sexes was observed.