“The past is a different country, they do things differently there”: using the SEER data-base to assess prognosis in neuroendocrine tumours

The conservation of archaeological materials should be considered part of any archaeological recovery analysis or storage operation. In the past two decades, conservation has begun to emerge as a profession. With this advent should come an increased awareness on the part of archaeologists that specialized techniques and practices used by conservators can prolong the life and usefulness of irreplaceable data base collections. With a few notable exceptions, professional conservation for collections has been ignored in the past. The result of neglect has been lost or badly damaged artifacts. This situation can and should be rectified.

AbstractInformation extraction is the process of converting unstructured text into a structured data base containing selected information from the text. It is an essential step in making the information content of the text usable for further processing. In this paper, we describe how information extraction has changed over the past 25 years, moving from hand-coded rules to neural networks, with a few stops on the way. We connect these changes to research advances in NLP and to the evaluations organized by the US Government.

Nurse developments in the management of neuroendocrine tumours have changed significantly over the past three years. At the Royal Free Hospital we set up the nurse specialist role due to the expansion of patients being referred to the specialist unit, and the obvious need for a nursing input into their care. The nurse specialist can make a significant contribution within the context of a multidisciplinary team especially in the production of guidelines and policies to ensure and maintain high standards of practice, education for the patient, and the provision of expertise and security that the patient requires when diagnosed with a rare disease.

Abstract Abstract 2683 Background: Pediatric HL studies have suggested survival differences based on ethnicity. However, little data is available regarding the impact, if any, of ethnicity on incidence patterns, disease histology, and/or survival among adult HL. Methods: We examined data for 13 US SEER areas, several of which contain large Hispanic and Black populations. Case information was obtained from the 11/2009 SEER data submission released April 2010. We analyzed incidence, HL histology, and mortality rates according to ethnicity, age, and gender. We also examined incidence patterns across the past four decades. All analyses used SEER*Stat. Results: A total of 16,783 HL cases were diagnosed among residents in the 13 SEER registry areas during 1992–2007, with non-Hispanic Whites contributing the largest number (n=11,890), followed by Hispanics (n=2,190), and Blacks (n=1,724). Consistent with SEER 9 results (1973 data), Whites show a continued bimodal age-incidence curve (6.0/100,000 ages 25–29, 2.5/100,000 ages 50–54, and 4.5/100,000 age 75–79). However, Blacks have a much less apparent bimodal pattern (4.5/100,000 ages 25–29, 2.6/100,000 ages 50–54, and 3.0/100,000 ages 75–79), while Hispanics are distinctly not bimodal with a small increase at 20–24 (2.4/100,000) followed by an exponential-like increase with peak HL incidence at ages 80–84 (7.0/100,000). Moreover, among persons >65 years, HL is currently significantly more common in Hispanics than Whites (4.7-7.0/100,000 vs 3.9–4.5/100,000, respectively, p<0.05). With gender, HL is more common in males than females, regardless of ethnicity. Interestingly, the male excess, however, does not occur until ages 30–34 (all ethnicities). Furthermore, from 1975–2007, HL incidence increased in Black females (annual percent change (APC) = 2.5; p<0.05) and White females (APC = 0.4; p<0.05). According to histology, both nodular sclerosis and mixed cellularity are more common in Whites followed by Blacks and Hispanics, while in persons age 60–84, both histologies are significantly more common in Hispanics compared with Whites and Blacks. Over the past 20 years, mortality has declined within each race by 10.3%–13.7% (p<0.05). However, age-specific ethnic survival disparities are apparent (Figure 1). For ages 65–84, Hispanics have a significantly increased mortality rate compared with Whites/Blacks (p<0.05). Conversely, among ages 20–44, Hispanics have a lower mortality rate versus Whites and Blacks. Conclusions: Multiple important epidemiologic and mortality differences are evident across and within ethnicities in adult HL. *Both sexes (1992-2007). Rates are per 100,000. Mortality source: US Mortality Files, National Center for Health Statistics, CDC. Accessed August 12th, 2010. Disclosures: No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.

391 Background: There are no randomized data to guide clinicians treating patients with gallbladder cancer (GBC). Several retrospective studies reported the survival benefits of adjuvant radiotherapy (RT) and chemoradiation (CRT). The aims of this study were to examine whether these publications have impacted the utilization of adjuvant therapies and whether their survival benefits were evident in contemporary cohort of patients. Methods: Using the National Cancer Data Base, we identified 5,029 patients diagnosed with T1-3N0-1 GBC and treated with surgical resection from 2005 to 2013. We described trends in receipt of adjuvant treatments for three time periods (2005-2007, 2008-2010, 2011-2013) and calculated 3-year overall survival (OS) probabilities for 2,989 patients treated in 2005-2010. Results: The percentage of patients who received no adjuvant treatment was unchanged from 2005 to 2013. Adjuvant RT decreased from 4.3% to 1.7% (p < 0.01), adjuvant chemotherapy increased from 8% to 14% (p < 0.01), and adjuvant CRT remained stable at 16% (p = 0.98). Even for locally advanced disease (T3N0 and T1-3N1) or in the setting of positive resection margins, over 50% of patients in US did not receive adjuvant treatments. Adjuvant treatments were associated with improved 3-year overall survival in patients with resected GBC, as listed in Table. Adjuvant CRT was associated with improved survival in all stages, except T1N0, and in patients with negative and positive margins. Conclusions: Over the past decade there was no increase in the utilization of adjuvant therapies in the US for patients with resected GBC. Adjuvant therapy is associated with significantly improved 3-yr OS. In the absence of randomized data, this analysis should form the basis for clinical recommendations and national guidelines should be amended to support adjuvant treatment.[Table: see text]

For the past 3 decades, rhinovirus grown in cell culture and used to induce experimental infections has been assumed to produce illness comparable to natural rhinovirus illness. However, no studies have been conducted to compare the characteristics of these two illnesses. We have used two data bases, one from natural colds of proven rhinovirus etiology and one for experimental rhinovirus colds, to compare symptom occurrence. The natural cold data set contained prospectively collected data for the frequency of occurrence of symptoms for 139 insurance employees with natural rhinovirus colds. The experimental colds data base was obtained from 10 separate volunteer studies involving a total of 125 subjects who had a rhinovirus inoculation into the nose. Daily symptom frequency for the natural and experimental illnesses found that the symptoms of nasal obstruction and malaise occurred significantly more often on illness days 1–5 during experimental colds. Also, significant differences were found for days 1–4 for feverishness/fever, days 1–3 for nasal discharge, days 1–2 for sneezing, days 3–5 for sore throat, and day 1 for cough. Some of the latter symptoms occurred more frequently with experimental and some with natural infection. In general, the illnesses associated with the two types of infection were more similar than they were different.

Abstract. The BASE-project collects all earthquakes which have been recorded in historical documents in Bavaria up to the installation of the first major seismograph in 1905. 27 crucial publications of the past two centuries have already been assessed and the reports, 1112 in total, have been filed in a data base. Included are not only all events which have been recorded for Bavaria itself, but also events which have been felt and recorded in Bavaria, but may have taken place in neighbouring countries. The data base will be published on the internet. In a second step public users of the data are encouraged to take part in the improvement and completion of the data base. This especially aims at local historians, librarians etc. who can contribute to the data base by adding information and data from local archives or documents, which would otherwise be virtually inaccessible for the public.

My experiences in practice during the past ten years lead me to believe that "hyperactivity" is primarily an emotional problem. Currently, however, the diagnosis is often made-and drugs administered-on the basis of fragmentary information about the child's behavior and with little attempt to explore the child's inner state or the family relationships. These statements are based on observations made while following up 290 children whose diagnosis was hyperactivity. I was the family pediatrician in these cases and, as such, was eventually admitted to the interior of the families. Additionally, I gathered school records for the children and medical records for most of the adult family members. This broad data base, combined with my long personal relationship with the families, is the basis for the conclusions I present here. I submit that the data base is both more intensive and extensive than that which an academic institution or clinic can usually achieve; that is why a relatively apparent aspect of hyperactivity has been, until now, neglected. THE SAMPLE The period covered is from July 1965 through June 1975. My practice at that time was in Hayward, a suburb of the east San Francisco Bay. Omitting consultations, I followed up 1,016 families with 2,427 children for a mean of 61 months (SD, 29 months). I have matched my practice demographically to both the U.S. census and several regional surveys and have found the practice to be within 5% on occupational, marital, racial, and economic criteria. The diagnosis of hyperactivity for the 290 patients whose cases I will discuss had been made by either school personnel, parents, another physician, or, in some cases, all three.

Wetlands preserve evidence which no other landscape in western Europe can provide. The variety of wetlands is great and conditions for the survival of evidence and for archaeological work are equally varied. The quantity and quality of organic, and inorganic, evidence from wetland sites is now well documented by work in Denmark, Switzerland and Italy in particular, but most European countries have such special sites, where the abundance of evidence can enormously augment our knowledge of the past. The purpose of wetland archaeology must be to expand our very restricted data base into new areas of research, both cultural and environmental. A scheme for the development of priorities for wetland sites and areas may help to direct resources, but the threats to wetlands by current agricultural and other policies are particularly severe, and only concerted efforts will retain these areas in suitable condition for future preservation or examination.

This paper provides a concise history and assessment of Iranian information science in the past two decades. Traces progress from early indexing projects to interactive data base searching. Assesses the importance of early course work, an early sophisticated technical information center, and the Iranian Documentation Centre's extensive activities. High lights from the implementation in a developing country of the American information science concept.