Specimens from 135 cutaneous abscesses in outpatients were cultured anaerobically and aerobically. Of these, 4% were sterile and 29% yielded pure cultures, predominantly of Staphylococcus aureus. Aerobic species were isolated from all anatomic areas. Anaerobes were found with a frequency comparable to aerobes in all nonperineal areas except the hand. In contrast, abscesses in the perineal region contained a greater variety and frequency of anaerobes. Only two patients were febrile. All abscesses were treated with incision and drainage, and all healed without complication, including those 74% that were treated without adjunctive antibiotics. Primary management of cutaneous abscesses should be incision and drainage. In general, routine culture and antibiotic therapy are not indicated for localized abscesses in patients with presumably normal host defenses.

Objective To assess the mean time to cancer-speci®c death in patients with prostate cancer, using a minimum follow-up of 14 years at one institution, and thus evaluate the minimum life-expectancy for eligibility for radical surgery, radiotherapy and, implicitly, prostate speci®c antigen (PSA) screening. Patients and methods The tumour registry of the authors' institution was searched for the records of patients with prostate cancer (stages T1 and nonmetastatic T2±3) over the period 1976±1983, chosen to give a maximum follow-up with suf®cient numbers of patients. Kaplan±Meier curves and the mean time to death to 1995 for palpable and impalpable cancers were calculated. Deaths not from cancer and from unknown causes were censored. Patients still alive were also censored, except for in the calculation of mean time to death. Results Patients with both stages of disease had a steep increase in mortality at 16 years. The mean (SEM) time to prostate cancer-speci®c death for T1 disease was 17 (1.8) years and for T2-T3 (palpable) was 11.7 (1.2 years). Conclusion These results suggest that, if there is to be one at all, the upper age limit for prostate cancer screening should be 62 years.

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