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Most women requesting pregnancy termination have already decided to undergo an abortion. Physicians are required to obtain informed consent after offering objective and accurate descriptions of abortion and its risks and benefits. Some jurisdictions also require concurrent counseling and ultrasound viewing. This article discusses potential benefits and harms of providing emotionally charged or biased content about abortions at the time of service, considers what constitutes ethical content, and explores when ethical content should be part of abortion decision making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I believe that my experience is not unique and may explain why only 9.8% of the employed physician workforce is unionized.[2] It is clear to me that unionization of physicians will not succeed as a grassroots effort, and must come from outside the health care organization. Because almost 75% of physicians are currently employed by hospitals, health systems, or other corporate entities,[3] there is an opportunity for a physician-union partnership to improve the health care industry for the benefit of both physicians and patients. Comment & Response B To the Editor b Physicians employed by hospitals face many challenges to their professional autonomy and ethical practices. [Extracted from the article]

Leukemia is a heterogeneous collection of diseases with different molecular origins. The molecular features may provide physicians with markers that can be used to monitor disease. In acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), molecular monitoring methods can be very useful in developing and improving treatment. Some argue that one of the main problems in adult ALL is that it is homogeneous but, in fact, it is a very diverse condition. However, it can't be seen in the surface markers or in the nucleus of these diseases, so there is a need to develop ways to identify these cases. Good and potentially curable subsets of ALL patients are beginning to be identified by combining traditional phenotypic and immunologic markers with molecular and genetic approaches. As treatments improve, definition of therapeutic and prognostic subsets and their significance to clinical outcome is imperative. While progress has been made in the use of molecular techniques to detect residual disease, we must still acquire experience in using these markers to monitor treatment efficacy, with the eventual aim of improving outcome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Pancreatic cancer remains a disease with a poor prognosis. Historically, response rates to chemotherapy alone remain low, and response duration lasts only months, with no clear improvement in survival. This study compiled the data from a pilot phase II trial and a retrospective review of cases with a treatment protocol involving combined use of selective internal radiation therapy (SIRT) using yttrium 90 (90Y) resin microspheres directed to hepatic metastases, selective external radiation treatment (SERT) using TomoTherapy (TomoTherapy Inc., Madison, WI) directed to pancreatic bed disease, and 5-fluorouracil infusional chemotherapy adminstered to patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer. Methods: The study population consisted of patients with pancreatic cancer metastatic to the liver, with or without pancreatic bed disease. Those with liver and pancreatic bed disease were offered the chemotherapy-SIRT-SERT complete protocol, whereas those with liver-only disease were eligible for the chemotherapy-SIRT combination. Patients underwent visceral angiography, technetium 99m macroaggregated albumin scanning, and pancreatic protocol fluorine 18 fluorodeoxyglucose- positron emission-computed tomography (PET-CT) scan. Determinations of the administered activity resulting from 90Y microsphere SIRT were made based on dosimetric calculations using medical internal radiation dosimetry. In the delivery of SERT, the target volume was composed of the pancreatic tumor and any positive lymph nodes and specifically excluded the liver metastasis. Objective response measures included the CA 19.9 level for the evaluation of overall disease status and PETCT- based determinations of standard uptake volume (SUV), functional tumor volume (FTV), total lesion glycolysis (TLG), and anatomic tumor volume. Results: Seven patients had both liver and pancreatic bed disease and received the complete chemotherapy-SIRT-SERT protocol and four patients received chemotherapy-SIRT for liver-only disease. In the chemotherapy-SIRT-treated field, seven of the nine patients demonstrated a decrease in SUV avg and six patients showed a decrease in FTV and TLG. In the chemotherapy- SERT-treated field, six of the seven patients who received TomoTherapy demonstrated a decrease in SUV avg , five patients showed a decrease in FTV, and six patients demonstrated a decrease in TLG. Disease progression was observed in four patients with extrapancreaticohepatic lesions not covered with SIRT or SERT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interstitial deletion or loss of chromosome 5, del(5q) or -5, is a frequent finding in myeloid leukemias and myelodysplasias, suggesting the presence of a tumor suppressor gene within the deleted region. In our search for this gene, we identified a candidate, 5qNCA (LOC51780), which lies within a consistently-deleted segment of 5q31. 5qNCA expresses a 7.2-kb transcript with a 5286-bp open reading frame which is present at high levels in heart, skeletal muscle, kidney, placenta, and liver as well as CD34+ cells and AML cell lines. 5qNCA encodes a 191-kD nuclear protein which contains a highly-conserved C-terminus containing a zinc finger with the unique spacing Cys-X2-Cys-X7-His-X2-Cys-X2-Cys-X4-Cys-X2-Cys and a jmjC domain, which is often found in proteins that regulate chromatin remodeling. Expression of 5qNCA in a del(5q) cell line results in suppression of clonogenic growth. Preliminary sequence results in AML and MDS samples and cell lines has revealed a possible mutation in the KG-1 cell line resulting in a THR to ALA substitution that has not been found in over 100 normal alleles to date. We propose 5qNCA is a good candidate for the del(5q) tumor suppressor gene based on its predicted function and growth suppressive activities, and suggest that further mutational and functional study of this interesting gene is warranted. Oncogene (2001) 20, 6946–6954. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]