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Biomedical subjects

S Grosser

Publications and source records attributed to S Grosser.

26 records · Page 2Linked to original sources
PubMed1988

Body size, reproductive factors, and breast cancer survival.

Mortality rates among 838 white female breast cancer patients were examined for relationships to personal characteristics assessed at time of diagnosis. These included weight and body mass index, oral contraceptive use, and prior menstrual and reproductive events. Multivariate analyses were used to determine the importance of these characteristics in predicting death rates specific for age and extent of disease at time of diagnosis. Weight was associated with poor prognosis among premenopausal patients, but not among postmenopausal patients. Premenopausal women weighing more than 140 lbs at diagnosis had death rates 1.7 times those of lighter women (P = 0.04). This effect was not explained by differences in the distribution of disease stage between the two groups. Body mass index was positively associated with mortality in both premenopausal and postmenopausal patients. In the entire group, the death rate ratio was 1.4 (P = 0.02) for obese (body mass index greater than 30.4 X 10(-3) lbs/in.2) vs lean women. Among premenopausal patients, parous women had higher mortality rates than nulliparous women (death rate ratio = 2.0, P = 0.06). Although the data were sparse, death rates were higher for women having a full-term pregnancy within 2 years of diagnosis than for premenopausal women with earlier pregnancies. Oral contraceptive use, age at menarche, age at first full term birth, and age at menopause were unrelated to mortality.

Adult↗
PubMed1988

Personal and environmental characteristics related to epithelial ovarian cancer. I. Reproductive and menstrual events and oral contraceptive use.

In two case-control studies conducted in the six-county San Francisco Bay Area, 111 women diagnosed with epithelial ovarian carcinoma in 1974-1977 and 188 women diagnosed in 1983-1985 were interviewed concerning their menstrual, sexual, and reproductive histories. For comparison, interviews were conducted with 752 control women admitted to the same hospitals within six months of the cases; for cases diagnosed in the later period, interviews were also conducted with an additional 259 population-based controls selected by random digit dialing. Controls were matched to cases by age and race. Qualitative and quantitative findings were similar for the two studies. In the combined data, cases were more likely than their matched controls to have been nulliparous, to have undergone menarche at an early age, and to have refrained from using oral contraceptives. Menopause occurred slightly later for cases than for controls, but the differences were not statistically significant. Neither age at first term pregnancy (20 or more weeks gestation) nor number of term pregnancies was predictive of ovarian cancer risk. The protection afforded by oral contraceptive use was independent of parity, and it increased with increasing duration of use. There were no trends in risk with time since last oral contraceptive use or with time since first use, after adjustment for duration of use. These observations suggest that oral contraceptive use decreases risk for ovarian cancer, rather than merely indicates fertility, which may itself decrease risk of developing the disease. The authors combined reproductive characteristics and oral contraceptive use to estimate a woman's total duration of ovulation, which was positively associated with ovarian cancer risk (p less than 0.001 for trend). These observations support the concept that the greater the duration of ovulation or accompanying endocrinologic phenomena, the greater a woman's risk for ovarian cancer.

Adult↗
PubMed1988

Personal and environmental characteristics related to epithelial ovarian cancer. II. Exposures to talcum powder, tobacco, alcohol, and coffee.

Vaginal exposures to talc and other particulates may play an etiologic role in epithelial ovarian cancer. Surgical sterilization may protect against ovarian cancer by blocking entry of such particulates into the peritoneal cavity. The authors assessed histories of talcum powder use, tubal sterilization, and hysterectomy with ovarian conservation in 188 women in the San Francisco Bay Area with epithelial ovarian cancers diagnosed in 1983-1985 and in 539 control women. To investigate the roles of blood-borne environmental exposures on ovarian cancer risk, they assessed lifetime consumption of coffee, tobacco, and alcohol in these women. Of the 539 controls, 280 were hospitalized women without overt cancer, and 259 were chosen from the general population by random digit telephone dialing. Ninety-seven (52%) of the cancer patients habitually used talcum powder on the perineum, compared with 247 (46%) of the controls. Adjusted for parity, the relative risk (RR) = 1.40, p = 0.06. There were no statistically significant trends with increasing frequency or duration of talc use, and patients did not differ from controls in use of talc on sanitary pads and/or contraceptive diaphragms. Fewer ovarian cancer patients (7%) than controls (13%) reported prior fallopian tube ligation (RR, adjusted for parity, = 0.56, p = 0.06), and fewer patients (20%) than controls (28%) reported prior hysterectomy (RR = 0.66, p = 0.05). The protective effect of hysterectomy was confined to those who underwent this surgery 10 or more years prior to interview and to those who had not undergone prior tubal sterilization. Consumption of cigarettes and alcohol did not differ between cases and controls. By contrast, 11 (6%) cases never regularly consumed coffee, compared with 31 (11%) hospital controls and 26 (10%) population controls (RR, adjusted for smoking, = 2.2, p = 0.03, for the comparison using all controls). Overall, ovarian cancer risk among women who had drunk coffee for more than 40 years was 3.4 times that of women who had never regularly consumed coffee (p less than 0.01). However, the data exhibited no clear trends in risk with increasing consumption. Although risk ratios relating duration of coffee drinking to ovarian cancer were unaffected by adjustment for several characteristics, further study is needed to exclude potential confounding by other unmeasured characteristics.

Adult↗
PubMed1986

[High-dosage cotrimoxazole therapy of disseminated Nocardia brasiliensis infection].

After a scraping injury to the skin a 47-year-old man developed a generalized Nocardia brasiliensis infection with cutaneous, pulmonary and cerebral dissemination. There was no predisposing underlying illness. High-dosage cotrimoxazol and short-term intrathecal and systemic gentamycin administration achieved extensive healing. This form of treatment would thus seem capable of reversing the otherwise poor prognosis of generalized N. brasiliensis infection.

Brain Abscess↗
PubMed1985

[Successful therapy of recurrent hypoglycemias by surgical removal of a malignant hemangiopericytoma].

Tumor growth in a 72-year-old male patient with malignant haemangiopericytoma in the left hemithorax could be followed radiologically for 4 years before symptoms of recurrent hypoglycaemia appeared. The endogenous insulin level in serum was maximally and serum IGF-1 and IGF-2 markedly reduced. An intravenous arginine load test showed a normal stimulation capacity of the pancreatic glucagon secretion but not that of insulin. After resection of the tumor, blood sugar metabolism was completely normalised. The insulin level, IGF-1 and IGF-2 in serum returned to normal.

Aged↗