Search PubMed⌕ Search

Biomedical subjects

C Mettlin

Publications and source records attributed to C Mettlin.

At least 91 records · Page 5Linked to original sources
PubMed1984

Diet and the epidemiology of human breast cancer.

There are substantial data on breast tumorigenesis in animals that suggest that diet may be an important factor in human breast cancer etiology. The promotional effects of dietary fat, and, in particular, unsaturated fats, on mammary tumors in rodents is well established. The geographic distribution of breast cancer in humans correlates with international differences in average fat intake. Differences in dietary habits among populations in the United States and their breast cancer risk also have been observed. In the United States, the trend has been toward increased total fat consumption and increased use of polyunsaturated fats. However, breast cancer incidence among white women in the United States has changed very little. Case-control studies of dietary intake and breast cancer risk have shown inconsistent results, and prospective studies of breast cancer mortality and serum cholesterol and serum lipids show no differences in risk between women with high levels of cholesterol and serum lipids compared with women with low levels. Laboratory studies also suggest the possibility that natural inhibitors of breast cancer may occur in the diet as well. Antioxidants, inducers of microsomal enzyme activity, and retinoids, all have been implicated in the metabolic epidemiology of breast cancer. Research results at Roswell Park memorial Institute have associated lower levels of intake of dietary vitamin A with a slightly elevated risk of breast cancer. To date, the epidemiologic data do not indicate with confidence that any specific dietary risk factor may be associated with breast cancer risk in the United States population. Additional epidemiologic studies on inhibition or promotion of breast cancer following the leads of previous laboratory research may clarify the nature and practical significance of the relationship between diet and breast cancer.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1984

Comparison of patient profiles from a comprehensive cancer center and the general population.

Differences in cancer patient profiles between cases seen at comprehensive cancer centers and those seen in the general population are seldom assessed by means of reliable and systematically collected data. This report compares the characteristics of patients treated at Roswell Park Memorial Institute in Buffalo with all reported patients diagnosed in the Western New York population. Data for this study were generated from the Roswell Park Tumor Registry and the Western New York Tumor Registry. The findings indicate that patients presenting for treatment at Roswell Park Memorial Institute, compared to the WNY cancer patient population, are more frequently diagnosed with rare tumors, are younger, and manifest later stage disease. These data may have implications for the planning and evaluation of cancer patient services at the community level.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1984

Epidemiologic studies on vitamin A and cancer.

Data derived from epidemiologic studies on human populations are consistent with the protection from cancer afforded by vitamin A seen in animal studies. The populations studied are diverse, including groups living in India, Singapore, Norway, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The methodologies brought to bear on the question have been equally varied. Although there are inconsistencies in findings, and instances in which an association has not been observed, the weight of evidence suggests that the intake of vitamin A from dietary or other sources may inhibit the onset of lung cancer and possibly other cancers. However, the evidence from human populations is not experimental and it is conceivable that the associations observed are not causal. Additional epidemiologic research is needed to determine what sites of cancer may be inhibited by vitamin A and whether cancer growth at any other site is enhanced by high vitamin A intakes. It is also important that controlled trials using vitamin A as a chemopreventive agent be considered as a means of determining whether the epidemiologic findings are of clinical significance.

Adult↗
PubMed1984

Patterns of care survey data on family history and ulcerative colitis in rectal cancer.

Data from a short-term survey on rectal cancer, sponsored by the Commission on Cancer of the American College of Surgeons, were analyzed in order to assess the association between family history of bowel cancer, ulcerative colitis, and rectal cancer. Overall, 7.4% of rectal cancer patients had a positive family history of bowel cancer and 2.5% reported personal history of ulcerative colitis. The association between these two factors was statistically significant. Patients with a positive family history were significantly younger than those without a family history of bowel cancer. Significantly more white patients than black patients had positive family histories. Significantly greater proportions of patients with earlier stage disease and well differentiated tumors were observed among persons with a family history of bowel cancer. No such association was observed among patients with a history of ulcerative colitis.

Adult↗
PubMed1984

Dietary vitamin A and lung cancer risk: an analysis by histologic subtypes.

A case-control study was conducted based on 427 white males with lung cancer of the squamous, small cell, and adenocarcinoma histologic subtypes and 1,094 white male controls admitted to Roswell Park Memorial Institute between the years 1957 and 1965. The relation between selected dietary factors and lung cancer risk was examined for each histologic subtype while controlling for past cigarette use. Dietary vitamin A was found to be negatively associated with risk for squamous cell and small cell carcinoma, but not for adenocarcinoma of the lung. No significant association was observed, however, between dietary vitamin C, fats, or fiber and any of the lung cancer subtypes. These results suggest that the apparent protective effect of vitamin A in lung cancer may be histologic type-specific.

Adenocarcinoma↗
PubMed1984

The 1982 national survey of carcinoma of the breast in the United States by the American College of Surgeons.

The 1982 survey documented changes in the management of carcinoma of the breast in this country. If one compares the current survey results with the results of the 1978 survey, an inescapable conclusion is that there is a changing understanding of carcinoma of the breast and a willingness to apply new knowledge to clinical practice. These results also show the potential of the hospital Tumor Registry when records are systematically aggregated and data from different points compared. Future applications of this survey procedure and further analyses of these data may be used to document progress in the control of cancer. While useful for these purposes, it should be noted that these data are not intended, nor suited, for assessing the superiority of given treatments. They may not reflect the outcome that would result from a clinical trial. Comparisons made herein often involve patients who differed in many respects other than that on which the comparison was focused. However, within these constraints, the data may be useful for clinicians and scientists interested in the dynamic state of the treatment of carcinoma of the breast in large numbers of hospitals in the United States.

Adult↗
PubMed1984

Management of cutaneous melanoma in the United States.

Melanoma is an especially important malignant disease for surgeons to know about, since it can be cured with surgical treatment if diagnosed at an early stage. In the American College of Surgeons Melanoma Survey of 4,545 melanoma patients diagnosed during 1980, the typical melanoma was relatively thin (less than 1.5 millimeters), not ulcerated (except in 9 per cent) and did not invade into the reticular dermis or beyond (level IV or V). The melanomas were most commonly located on the trunk in men and on the lower extremities in women. Eighty-eight per cent of the patients had no clinical evidence of metastases to regional nodes or to distant sites at the time of initial diagnosis. Only a small proportion (1 per cent) of patients in the survey were black and in most of these patients, their melanoma were located on the feet or hands. The treatment of melanoma was surgical in 92.5 per cent of the patients, with the majority of patients undergoing a wide excision of the melanoma as the initial form of treatment. Only one-fifth of the patients underwent elective regional node dissection for suspected micrometastases, and most of these patients had a tumor thickness exceeding 1.5 millimeters or a lesion invading to the reticular dermis (level III, IV or V). While the Breslow Microstaging Method is now recognized as the most important parameter that predicts the clinical course of the patient, this parameter was reported in only 45 per cent of the patients in the survey. The natural history of melanoma is changing, since the disease is increasing in frequency and becoming more curable. Surgical treatment should be tailored to the biologic aggressiveness of each individual patient's melanoma. This can be estimated by integrating such prognostic factors as the melanoma thickness, the presence or absence of ulceration, the level of invasion, the anatomic site and the gender of the patient.

Adult↗
PubMed1983

Epidemiologic observations from the American College of Surgeons' survey on prostate cancer.

Data on the incidence and mortality from prostate cancer are available in this country and others, but there are few sources of information relating to widely prevalent clinical practices. The long- and short-term prostate cancer surveys conducted by the Commission on Cancer of the American College of Surgeons offer a system of assessing patterns of cancer patient care in a large number of hospitals in the United States. Data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) System indicate that at every age blacks experience greater rates of incidence and mortality than whites. Comparisons of modes of diagnosis reported for black and white patients for 1974 and 1979 from the American College of Surgeons surveys show little difference between these groups, indicating that the excess in incidence among blacks is not attributable to differential patterns of diagnosis. The survey results also indicate that white patients appear to have a slight survival advantage in stages B, C, and D. The lower survival appears to be the product of relatively advanced stage of the disease rather than the result of biologically more malignant nature of prostate cancer in the blacks.

Adult↗
PubMed1983

What young men know about testicular cancer.

A survey to asess what young men know about testicular cancer and to determine awareness and practice of testicular self-examination (TSE) was conducted among 266 male graduate and undergraduate students at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Findings indicate that the majority of young men were either uninformed or misinformed about their risk of getting testicular cancer and about the symptoms of testicular cancer. Only 16% of respondents had heard of TSE before the survey, and only a small percentage of these individuals reported doing TSE on a routine basis. The findings from this study point out the need for increased public education directed at symptom recognition, especially at the high school and post-high school levels.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1983

Diet in the epidemiology of carcinoma of the prostate gland.

In vivo, in vitro, prospective, and retrospective epidemiologic inquiries have suggested that retinoids inhibit cancer, and fats have been hypothesized to enhance and ascorbic acid to reduce cancer risk. Comparison of 260 patients from Buffalo with cancer of the prostate gland was made with two different control series of similar size and age distribution. Regardless of the control group, risk of prostate cancer gained with increases in ingestion of retinoids, animal fats, and vitamin C. These anomalous findings may be due to peculiarities in methodology. From the possible specificity of effect of the nutrients studied, as shown in experimental animals and in vitro, a hypothesis could be made that a substance like vitamin A or C, which may inhibit certain cancers, also may enhance risk of other cancer types or have neither effect.

Adult↗
PubMed1983

A case-control study of dietary and nondietary factors in ovarian cancer.

A case-control study is presented that estimates ovarian cancer risk for various factors, including diet. Data collected by interview between 1957 and 1965 for 274 white women aged 30-79 years with epithelial carcinoma of the ovary are compared to data similarly collected for 1,034 hospital controls. Relative risk estimates are presented for the total group as well as for premonopausal (ages 30-49) and postmenopausal (ages 50-79) are groups. In the total group, cancer risk increased with increasing age at first marriage (P less than .01) and previous history of benign breast disease (P less than 0.1), and risk decreased with increasing number of previous pregnancies (P less than .01). In the 50- to 79-year age group, a marginally significant trend for decreasing risk with increasing obesity was observed (P less than .10). There was no significant risk (i.e., P less than .10) associated with the consumption of alcohol, cigarettes, coffee, tea, total dietary protein, vitamin C, or fat at any age. In the 30- to 49-year age group only, increased risk (P less than .01) was seen in women reporting diets low in fiber and vitamin A from fruit and vegetable sources. Multiple regression analysis demonstrated that the apparent protective effect of vitamin A in the 30- to 49-year age group (but not dietary fiber) was independent of the nondietary factors analyzed in this study (P less than .05).

Adult↗
PubMed1983

Family physicians' beliefs about breast cancer screening by mammography.

A survey of 509 family physicians in New York State was conducted to assess opinions about mammography and use of mammography in screening asymptomatic women of different ages. Findings indicate that most family physicians believe that mammography is an effective procedure for detecting breast cancer in its early stages, but many do not utilize mammography as a screening procedure in their own practices. The major deterrents to the use of mammography in screening asymptomatic women relate to concerns about the safety and reliability of the procedure, the low probability of detecting breast cancer through screening, the patient's willingness to accept a recommendation to have a mammogram, and cost. The results from this study point out the need to better educate primary care physicians about the use of mammography in screening for breast cancer, especially in regard to its safety and reliability.

Adult↗