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Biomedical subjects

B Cummings

Publications and source records attributed to B Cummings.

59 records · Page 4Linked to original sources
PubMedDate not supplied

Benign parotid adenomas: a review of the Princess Margaret Hospital experience.

BACKGROUND: The morbidity of treating benign parotid tumors is an important issue because the majority of patients are young. We therefore undertook this study to evaluate the outcome for these patients treated at the Princess Margaret Hospital. METHODS: A retrospective review was conducted on all patients registered with benign parotid tumors between 1970 and 1987. RESULTS: Seventy-six patients were included in this review; postoperative radiotherapy (XRT) was administered to 55 patients. Median follow-up time was 12.5 years. Postoperative XRT was particularly important for patients with recurrent disease. The risk of both temporary and permanent facial nerve paralyses increased with each operation. No patients in this study developed a malignancy. CONCLUSIONS: We recommend that all patients with benign parotid tumors be treated with a complete parotidectomy with preservation of the facial nerve. Consideration to postoperative XRT should be given to patients in whom there was tumor spillage, residual disease, or recurrences.

Adenoma↗
PubMedDate not supplied

A method of clinical prognostic staging for patients with rectal cancer.

Methods of prognostic stratification for patients with rectal cancer currently rely solely on the extent of tumor penetration in the surgically excised rectum. Thus stratification according to prognostic factors can be performed only after treatment had been carried out and can play no role in pretherapeutic treatment decisions or in the design of trials of preoperative adjuvant treatment. To devise a method of clinical prognostic staging that could be applied to all patients with rectal cancer, regardless of therapy, the medical records were examined of an inception cohort of 282 patients treated by surgical and nonsurgical methods at three Toronto hospitals during the years 1968 to 1974. Six groups of clinical variables were identified that independently influenced prognosis: the presence or absence of metastatic disease, whether the rectal tumor was fixed or mobile, an annular rectal tumor, and the systemic symptoms of weight loss, anorexia, or weakness, and anemia. A composite method was developed for clinical prognostic staging from these variables and it was found that it created substantial gradients in survival. In patients treated by surgery, for whom comparisons of clinical staging with conventional anatomic staging were possible, clinical staging was as effective a method of prognostic staging as was anatomic staging. Furthermore, the prognostic impact of clinical staging persisted after adjustment for the effects of anatomic staging. This method of clinical prognostic staging should prove useful in making therapeutic decisions and in the design and analysis of clinical trials of alternative treatment for patients with rectal cancer.

Anemia↗
PubMedDate not supplied

A simple and efficient method for isolating genomic DNA from endomycorrhizal spores.

A procedure for rapid isolation of genomic DNA from spores of endomycorrhizal fungi is described. Isolation of high molecular weight DNA relies on the lysis of freeze-dried spores and extraction of DNA using mixed alkyl trimethyl ammonium bromide and an excess of proteinase. DNA greater than 30 kb was successfully isolated from Glomus mosseae, Glomus intraradices, and Glomus etnuicatum using less than 600,000 spores. All DNA preparations were suitable for restriction analysis, hybridizations, and cloning.

DNA, Fungal↗