A review of information from the New Mexico Tumor Registry on women diagnosed as having primary breast cancer from 1969 through 1985 revealed temporal changes in the surgical treatment of this disease. After 1980 the percentage of women receiving breast-conserving surgery for local-stage disease increased from 6% to 25%. Most surgeons performing operations for breast cancer had not performed a breast-conserving operation before 1981 but had used this procedure at least once in the period from 1981 through 1985. Women younger than 50 years or older than 80 years were most likely to undergo this procedure. In that period, radiotherapy after breast-conserving surgery could not be documented for 26% of the women 65 years old or younger or for 56% of the women aged 65 years or older. Thus, there has been a marked shift in New Mexico in the surgical approach to local-stage breast cancer in the 1980s. This shift involved most surgeons treating the disease and included women of all age groups. The apparent lack of adjuvant radiotherapy in some women receiving conservative surgeries may prove to be a deleterious consequence of this change in surgical management.

BackgroundTackling tuberculosis (TB) requires testing and treatment of high-risk groups for latent tuberculosis infection. We estimated the predictive values of the tuberculin skin test (TST) and interferon gamma release assays (IGRAs) for development of active TB in migrants and contacts of active TB patients in the UK.MethodsParticipants were prospectively recruited in clinics and the community and followed for a median of 2.9 years. We administered IGRAs (Quantiferon Gold In-Tube [QFT-GIT] and T-SPOT.TB) and TST (with 3 thresholds: 5 mm (TST5), 10 mm (TST10) and TST15 (5 mm in BCG-naïve, 15 mm in vaccinated). Potential incident TB cases were identified by telephone interview and national TB databases and confirmed by medical note review.ResultsNinety-seven (1.0%) of 9610 participants developed active TB (77 of 6386 who had Results for T-SPOT.TB, QFT-GIT and TST). All tests had very low incidence in test negatives (1.2–1.6 per 1000 per year). Incidence rates in test positives were highest for TSpot.TB (13.2 95% CI: (9.9–17.4)), TST15 (11.1 (8.3,14.6)) and QFT.GIT (10.1 (7.4,13.4)); positive test Results for these tests were significantly more predictive of progression than TST10 and TST5, TSpot.TB was also higher than QFT.GIT. TST5 predicted more at high risk (55%) than TST10 (45%), TSpot.TB (33%), TST15 (38%) and QFT.GIT (31%).ConclusionsIGRA-based or TST15 strategies are most suited for population screening in low-risk populations. Although TST5 and TST10 detect more TB cases this is at the cost of more individuals being classified at high risk with lower positive predictive values.

Despite the many questions being raised about multivitamin use by the elderly, it has not been proven that consuming an oral multivitamin alters vitamin blood levels in the aged. To address this question, we performed a randomized, prospective, placebo‐controlled study of daily multivitamin supplementation in 101 noninstitutionalized ambulatory elderly persons (median age, 64 years). Vitamin levels were assayed at baseline, and at two and four months of supplementation. At four months, those taking multivitamins had statistically significant increased levels of water soluble vitamins (C, B2, B12, plasma, and erythrocyte folate) that were greater than changes noted for the placebo group. This was not true for fat soluble vitamins A and E. Greater storage pools of fat soluble vitamins help explain this discrepancy. We conclude that in the ambulatory elderly, oral multivitamins can raise levels of water soluble vitamins but the effect on fat soluble vitamins remains uncertain.

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