Oberflächenanalyse: Mittels In‐situ‐Totalreflexions‐Röntgenfluoreszenz‐Absorptionsspektroskopie wurde gefunden, dass Cobalt an der Oberfläche einer LiCoO2‐Elektrode vom flüssigen Elektrolyten reduziert wird. Ein irreversibles Verhalten wurde an der LiCoO2‐Oberfläche während des ersten Lade‐/Entladeprozesses beobachtet, wohingegen das Bulk‐Material ein reversibles Verhalten zeigte. Die Cobalt‐Reduktion ist Auslöser für den Abbau der Elektrode.

There has been much uncertainty as to whether metastasis requires mutation at the time of spread. Here, we use clinical data to calculate the probability of the spread of melanoma and breast cancer cells. These calculations reveal that the probability of the spread of cancer cells is relatively high for small tumours (B1 event of spread for every 500 cells for melanomas of 0.1 mm) and declines as tumours increase in size (B1 event of spread for every 10 8 cells for melanomas of 12 mm). The probability of spread of breast cancer cells from the lymph nodes to the periphery is B1 event of spread for every 10 8 cells in the nodal masses, which have a mean diameter of 5 mm, while the probability of spread of cancer cells from the breast to the periphery when the primary masses are 5 mm is also B1 event of spread for every 10 8 cells. Thus, the occurrence of an event of spread from the breast to the lymph nodes appears not to increase the propensity of the progeny of those cells to spread from the lymph nodes to the periphery. These values indicate that the spread of human breast cancer and melanoma cells is unlikely to occur by a mechanism requiring mutation at the time of spread. There has been much uncertainty as to whether metastasis requires mutation at the time of spread (Cifone and Fidler, 1981;Fidler, 1983;Sobel, 1990;Welch et al, 2000;Yokota, 2000;Bernards and Weinberg, 2002;Couzin, 2003;Bernards, 2003;Van't Veer and Weigelt, 2003;Yang et al, 2004). Mutations have a number of characteristic features, in terms of the rates of their occurrence and other qualities, which are diagnostic: mutations are rare, a phenotype conferred on a cell by mutation is inherited by the progeny of the cell, and the rates of the appearance of phenotypes caused by mutations either remains constant over time for those phenotypes requiring only a single mutation, or increase in frequency for those phenotypes requiring the accumulation of multiple mutations. We have recently shown that from clinical data it is possible to measure the rates of metastatic spread, expressed in terms of the probability of spread per cell (Michaelson, 1999;Michaelson et al, 2002Michaelson et al, , 2003. Here we use this methology to measure the probability of spread per cell for human breast cancer and melanoma. The values of these probabilities are inconsistent with metastasis occurring by a process of mutation.

BACKGROUND:Cancer at both the primary site and in the lymph nodes is associated with lethality, although the mechanism by which lethality arises from each site has been poorly understood. For breast carcinoma, each positive lymph node contributes an approximately 6% risk of death, and each millimeter of primary tumor greatest dimension contributes approximately 1%; whereas, for melanoma, each positive lymph node contributes an approximately 23% risk, and each millimeter of tumor thickness contributes approximately 8%: This is described by a pair of linked equations, the Size+Nodes method.METHODS:A simple expression, the ProbabilityEstimation equation, which was derived from the authors' binary‐biologic model of cancer metastasis, was used to calculate the probabilities of spread of cancer cells from data on tumor size, lymph node status, and death rate.RESULTS:In this report, the authors demonstrated, that when similar masses of cancer are compared, the chance of lethal spread of a cancer cell to the periphery is approximately the same whether the spread emerges from a lymph node or from the primary site. The greater the number of cells at the primary site (tumor size) or the greater the number of cells in the lymph nodes (number of positive lymph nodes), the greater is the aggregate chance that 1 or more cells has undergone a lethal event of spread, a process captured by the Size+Nodes equations.CONCLUSIONS:The lethal contributions of cancer at the primary site and lymph nodes can be explained by a simple mechanical process of the spread of cancer cells occurring with definable probabilities per cell. The presence of cancer in the lymph nodes does not indicate an intrinsic change in a malignancy but, rather, an increased mass of cancer from which spread can emerge. Cancer 2009. © 2009 American Cancer Society.