PubMed HealthSearch

Biomedical subjects

M A Rose

Publications and source records attributed to M A Rose.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

The efficacy of pharmacokinetic monitoring and dose modification of etanidazole on the incidence of neurotoxicity: results from a phase II trial of etanidazole and radiation therapy in locally advanced prostate cancer.

Fifty-four patients have been entered on a Phase II trial to study the efficacy of etanidazole (ETA) for locally advanced prostate cancer. The primary goal was to study the incidence of and time to a complete response for patients receiving ETA and radiation therapy. The secondary goal was to prospectively evaluate the utility of pharmacokinetic monitoring and dose-modification of the incidence and severity of the dose-limiting peripheral neurotoxicity. Within a constant radiation therapy regimen, the dose of ETA was either (a) unmodified (2 g/m2, 3 times weekly for 17 doses); (b) altered by a schedule modification of either number of doses or dose adjustment; or (c) individualization of single dose size so that the total number of doses (19 doses) were maintained but the single dose size was adjusted to keep the total AUC of plasma concentration versus time to less than 40 mM-hr. Sufficient efficacy data are not yet available. The use of drug dose modification has reduced the incidence of neurotoxicity from (a) unmodified: 17/26 = 65% (1 grade II); (b) schedule adjustment: 5/9 = 55% (no grade II); and (c) individualized dose modification: 1/19 (no grade II) = 6%. The minimum number of time points needed to accurately assess the AUC will be determined. Pharmacokinetic monitoring will be important in the use of ETA so that drug underdosing can be avoided while minimizing the risk of serious neurotoxicity.

Adenocarcinoma

Evaluation of a peer-education program on heart disease prevention with older adults.

This investigation evaluated the effect of a peer-education program on preventing cardiovascular disease in older persons. Peer leaders at two urban senior housing residences were provided with training on cardiovascular disease and its risk factors, strategies to reduce the risk factors, and communication skills. Baseline and follow-up data were collected on residents at the two intervention and two control sites. The dependent variables were knowledge of cardiovascular disease risk factors; perceived self-efficacy to reduce calories, dietary fat and salt intake, to lose weight, to stop smoking, and to exercise regularly; and self-reported cardiovascular risk behaviors. Analysis of individual change scores between baseline and follow-up surveys showed a statistically significant increase in overall knowledge of heart disease, dietary self-efficacy, and exercise self-efficacy for the intervention group compared with the control group. This program appeared to benefit the individuals who lived in housing residences where the peer educators also resided.

Aged

Implementation issues in home healthcare universal precautions.

Universal precautions in home healthcare are essential, yet cost and compliance monitoring are major barriers to their implementation. To help administrators ensure adherence to universal precautions, the authors present specific strategies, including management commitment, a comprehensive training program sensitive to the educational level of the employee, and participation of employees in the continuing implementation and evaluation of the universal precautions policy.

Cost-Benefit Analysis

Intervention strategies for smoking cessation. The role of oncology nursing.

The role of oncology nurses concerned with the health effects of cigarette smoking may often be defined as dealing with the morbidity and mortality associated with tobacco use--caring for individuals diagnosed with tobacco-related malignancies. As current treatment methods of many of these malignancies offer little hope of cure, oncology nurses need to diverge from these traditional roles and include a focus on primary prevention activities. An essential component of these activities is a knowledge of smoking cessation education strategies and an understanding of the methods that motivate and assist individuals to quit smoking.

Female

Conservative surgery and radiation therapy for early breast cancer. Long-term cosmetic results.

To evaluate the cosmetic outcome of conservative surgery (CS) and radiation therapy (RT) for early-stage breast cancer and its stability over time, we reviewed the records of 593 patients treated from 1968 to 1981. The breast appearance was scored as "excellent," "good," "fair," or "poor". Median follow-up was 76 months (range, 37 to 186 months). Cosmetic results were generally excellent or good. The percents of excellent, good, fair, and poor results at three years were 65%, 25%, 7%, and 3%, respectively. Patients not receiving adjuvant chemotherapy were more likely than those receiving chemotherapy to have excellent scores at five years (71% vs 40%). Tumor size also influenced cosmetic outcome: 73% of patients with T1 tumors vs 55% with T2 tumors had excellent scores at five years. Our results were stable over time: of 36 patients assessable at seven years whose cosmetic scores were good or excellent at three years, 34 (94%) continued to have good or excellent scores, and only two (5%) deteriorated to fair. We conclude that the cosmetic results achieved with CS and RT are good to excellent in approximately 90% of patients and that these results remain stable for at least seven years.

Adult

Prognosis following local or regional recurrence after conservative surgery and radiotherapy for early stage breast carcinoma.

Factors which influence patient prognosis following a breast recurrence or regional nodal recurrence after initial treatment of early-stage invasive breast carcinoma with conservative surgery and radiotherapy are not well known. Ninety patients treated at the Joint Center for Radiation Therapy treated from 1968-1981 had a recurrence in the treated breast before (84) or simultaneous with (6) distant metastases. Sixty-five patients had salvage mastectomy (median subsequent follow-up in patients without further disease, 32 months; range, 1-123 months). The five-year rate of further recurrence in this group was 37%. The most important variable associated with subsequent outcome was the histology of the recurrent tumor. There were no further recurrences among 10 patients with purely non-invasive cancer or 10 patients with predominantly non-invasive disease and only focal areas of invasion. In contrast, 17/45 patients (38%) with predominantly infiltrating tumors suffered further local-regional recurrences (6) or distant metastases (11) following mastectomy (5-year actuarial rate, 55%) (p less than 0.05). Ten patients developed regional nodal failures without evidence of simultaneous breast recurrence (1 internal mammary, 3 supraclavicular, 1 both supraclavicular and axillary, and 5 axillary). Only 3 of these 10 (all with axillary node failures) did not have simultaneous distant metastases; they remain alive without evidence of further distant or local-regional recurrence following salvage treatment 1, 59, and 87 months after recurrence. We conclude that the great majority of the patients (88% in this series) who have a breast recurrence following initial conservative surgery and radiation therapy for early stage breast carcinoma will have disease limited to the breast clinically and tumors amenable to salvage mastectomy. Salvage mastectomy appears to be effective treatment for patients with an isolated breast recurrence, especially if the recurrence is predominantly or wholly non-invasive.

Adult

Results of conservative surgery and radiation therapy for multiple synchronous cancers of one breast.

A small number of patients with early stage breast cancer are found on presentation to have two or more separate carcinomas within the breast. To assess the effectiveness of conservative surgery and radiation therapy in these patients we compared treatment outcome among 10 patients with multiple lesions (21 cancers) and 707 patients with single lesions, treated at the Joint Center for Radiation Therapy between 1968-1981. Median follow-up was 64 months and 75 months for the multiple and single lesion groups, respectively. In each patient with multiple lesions, both (or all 3) lesions had similar histologic features. Eight of these ten patients (80%) had an infiltrating ductal carcinoma (IDC) compared to 72% of patients with single lesions. Six of these 8 patients with IDC had at least 1 lesion with an extensive intraductal component (EIC), compared to a 33% incidence of an EIC in solitary lesions. All lesions were grossly excised. Radiotherapy was given to the entire breast in all patients, with the majority also receiving a boost dose to the tumor bed site. Four of the 10 patients with multiple lesions recurred in the treated breast (40%) compared to 77 of the 707 patients (11%) with single lesions (p = 0.019, Fisher exact test). In the six patients with multiple lesions who had an EIC, three developed a local failure. In comparison, 43 of 167 patients (26%) with a single lesion with EIC developed a local failure. In patients with multiple lesions, 0 of 2 with IDC without an EIC, and 1 of 2 with histologies other than IDC had recurrence in the treated breast compared to 19 of the 342 (6%) and 15 of the 198 (8%) patients with single lesions with similar histologic features, respectively (p = NS). These results suggest that the presence of 2 or more separate primary tumors in the breast is associated with a high likelihood of local recurrence after treatment with conservative surgery and radiation therapy, even when all identified tumors are grossly resected. This may reflect the common finding of an EIC in these tumors. We conclude that the use of conservative surgery and radiation therapy for patients with more than one primary cancer in the breast should be considered with caution.

Adult

Premenopausal breast cancer patients treated with conservative surgery, radiotherapy and adjuvant chemotherapy have a low risk of local failure.

The use of adjuvant chemotherapy in premenopausal breast cancer patients with positive nodes is now routine, but the optimal local treatment of these patients is uncertain. To determine the effect of adjuvant chemotherapy on the likelihood of local recurrence as the first site of failure in premenopausal patients treated with conservative surgery (CS) and radiotherapy (RT), we examined the outcome of 74 patients treated with CS, RT, and adjuvant chemotherapy and compared it to the outcome in 192 patients treated with CS and RT alone. Adjuvant chemotherapy consisted of four or more cycles of either a doxorubicin-containing regimen or cyclophosphamide, methotrexate, and 5-fluorouracil. All patients were less than 50 years old, had UICC-AJCC Stage I or II breast cancer treated between 1968 and 1981, had gross excision of the primary tumor, and had a total radiation dose to the primary tumor bed of greater than or equal to 6000 cGy. Factors predicting for local recurrence, such as extensive intraductal carcinoma and age less than 35, were equivalent in the two groups. Women treated with adjuvant chemotherapy had significantly worse T- and N-stages than women treated with conservative surgery and radiotherapy alone: 61% versus 36% had T2 tumors (p = 0.0003), 34% versus 6% had clinically positive nodes (p less than 0.0001), and 97% versus 4% had pathologically positive nodes (p less than 0.0001). Despite the poorer prognosis of patients treated with adjuvant chemotherapy, within 5 years of diagnosis, 4% of patients who received adjuvant chemotherapy had their initial relapse in the breast and 24% had initial failure elsewhere, compared with 15% local failure first and 14% failure elsewhere first for those treated without chemotherapy (p = 0.01). We conclude that premenopausal patients with positive nodes treated with combined modality therapy (conservative surgery, radiation therapy, and adjuvant chemotherapy) have a low risk of local recurrence as a first site of failure. These results suggest a possible interaction between radiation therapy and chemotherapy in their effects on local tumor control.

Adult

Late cosmetic outcome after conservative surgery and radiotherapy: analysis of causes of cosmetic failure.

Although the majority of patients with early breast cancer treated with conservative surgery and radiotherapy have acceptable cosmetic outcomes, the specific causes of a less-than-acceptable result are not well known. To assess the technical factors associated with late cosmetic failure, we reviewed the records of 593 patients treated with conservative surgery and radiotherapy at the Joint Center for Radiation Therapy, Boston, between 1968 and 1981. Median follow-up was 76 months with a range of 37-186 months. Using a 4-point scoring system (excellent, good, fair, poor) patients were noted to have cosmetic "failure" if scored as either fair or poor. Cosmetic results were similar at 3, 5, and 7 years with excellent or good scores seen in 88%, 90%, and 78% of patients, respectively. Three technical factors were associated with a significant worsening of the cosmetic results. The resection of 70 cm3 or more of breast tissue was more common among the failed patients than among matched patients with good or excellent results (p = 0.03). Eighty-nine percent of patients treated with a tangent pair technique had excellent results at 5 years compared to 69% of patients treated with a three-field technique (p = 0.004). The use of a larger volume implant was associated with a greater risk of a fair or poor cosmetic result compared to the use of a smaller volume implant. We conclude that overall cosmesis has been acceptable in this series, but there are technical (surgery and radiotherapy) factors which can be modified to optimize the cosmetic result without compromising local tumor control.

Breast Neoplasms

The predictors of distant relapse following conservative surgery and radiotherapy for early breast cancer are similar to those following mastectomy.

Although previous studies have indicated that the predictors of local recurrence following conservative surgery (CS) and radiotherapy (RT) are not the same as those following mastectomy, it remains unclear whether the predictors of distant relapse differ by local treatment modality. Clinical and pathologic features predictive of distant relapse for patients treated with mastectomy have been well established and include lymph node involvement, histologic grade, and peritumoral lymphatic vessel invasion (LVI). To study the influence of these and other factors on the rate of distant relapse in patients treated with CS and RT, we have identified a group of 438 patients treated between 1968 and 1981 who met the following criteria: primary tumor size less than or equal to 5 cm, excision of the primary tumor, infiltrating ductal carcinoma as the most aggressive histologic subtype, histology evaluable for the presence of an extensive intraductal component, and a dose to the primary site greater than or equal to 60 Gy. Estrogen receptor status was available in 58% of cases, 76% had an axillary dissection, and 23% were treated with adjuvant chemotherapy. With a median follow-up of 89 months, 107 patients (24%) developed a distant relapse. The 5-year actuarial freedom from distant relapse (FDR) was 80%. Stepdown Cox proportional hazards regression analysis identified several factors associated with a significantly (p less than 0.01) increased risk for distant relapse: positive lymph nodes, histologic grade, necrosis, and lymphatic vessel invasion. The magnitude of each effect was then examined with a lifetable calculation. Five-year freedom from distant relapse was 86% for the node-negative subgroup, 78% for patients with one to three positive nodes, and 45% for patients with four or more positive nodes. For histologic grades I, II, and III, 5-year freedom from distant relapse was 96%, 97%, and 75%, respectively. For necrosis scored as absent, scant, moderate, or marked, 5-year freedom from distant relapse was 90%, 78%, 77%, and 66%, respectively. For lymphatic vessel invasion scored as absent or present, 5-year freedom from distant relapse was 85% and 63%, respectively. We conclude that the clinico-pathologic predictors for distant relapse following conservative surgery and radiotherapy appear to be the same as those following mastectomy. This observation is consistent with the notion that distant relapse is caused by the presence of micrometastases at the time of initial patient sentation and is not greatly influenced by selection of local treatment.

Breast Neoplasms

Home care nursing practice: the new frontier.

Home care is an integral part of the health care delivery system. Although home care has been discussed as a less costly alternative to hospital care, it is quite reasonable to consider the home the primary site for the delivery of health care, with the institution the alternative site. Thus, home care nursing, as the new frontier of health care, does and will continue to involve an array of nursing responsibilities from high-technology skills to case management of the chronically ill patient's multiple needs. There are specific areas that need to be addressed in home care, three of which were included in this discussion. These include the changing practice of the home care nurse, the lack of preventive and supportive services, and home care financing. Home care nursing has changed since the first sick poor people were visited in their homes by nurses in 1877. It would behoove nurses to try creative ways to reconstruct Wald's model of home care in today's home care system. Nurses in home care must be actively involved in practice (including care of the sick, chronically ill, and those at risk for potential health problems), continuing education, research, and political action. Home care nursing is more than caring for an individual or family at home; it is being aware of and involved in changing the home care climate for a holistic nursing practice.

Community Health Nursing

AIDS caregiving crisis: a proactive approach.

Within the next few years, it is very likely that AIDS will personally affect almost everyone in the United States in some manner. A relative, neighbor, friend, acquaintance, or coworker may develop AIDS. It is estimated that 1 to 1.5 million people in the United States are presently infected with the human immunodeficiency virus and may develop AIDS. AIDS is, indeed, a major public health problem. With the high cost of hospital care, home care is an effective health care alternative for people with AIDS. Obviously, people feel more comfortable in their own homes. Professional home care services are available for many people with AIDS but cannot always meet their needs 24 hours a day. The Home Nursing Course for Caregivers of Persons With AIDS is an example of an effective way to begin to deal with the present and future caregiving crisis. Nurses serve as both teachers and role models while presenting the course. This type of course presents a challenge for nurses to use their knowledge, experiences, and creativity to continue to address AIDS and other health care crises in similar ways.

Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome

Time-course of local recurrence following conservative surgery and radiotherapy for early stage breast cancer.

The time-course of local failure following conservative surgery and radiotherapy (S+RT) for early breast cancer is not well established. We therefore examined the time-course and patterns of breast recurrence as a first site of treatment failure in a group of 607 AJCC clinical Stage I or II invasive breast carcinomas treated from 1968-81. Sixty-seven patients had a breast failure (11%), corresponding to 5- and 10-year actuarial rates of 10% and 16%. The hazard rate (i.e., the risk per unit time of a failure) for any breast failure increased over the first 2 years, was fairly constant at about 2.5%/year over the period from 2 to 6 years after treatment, and then decreased to about 1%/year at 8 years. The majority of failures were at or near the primary tumor site (33 true recurrences (TR) and 15 marginal misses (MM). In addition there were 12 failures at sites at least several cm from the boosted volume (E), 6 recurrences in the skin without a parenchymal mass (S), and 1 patient with an unclassifiable failure. Recurrences at or near the primary site (TR/MM) occurred earlier (median 38.5 mo, range 12-87 mo) than recurrences at distant sites in the breast (E) (median 64.5 mo, range 26-90). The hazard rate for TR/MM increased over the first 2-1/2 years to reach approximately 2%/year, remained at that level till about 5 years after treatment, and then decreased to about 0.5%/year at 8 years following RT. By contrast, the hazard rate for E increased slowly with time to approximately 1%/year at 5 years, with little change in the rate after that time. We conclude that the time-course of the development of local recurrence after S+RT is protracted. The majority of failures appear at or near the primary tumor site; these are seen mainly in the first 7 years following RT. Recurrences at distant sites in the breast have an even more protracted time-course. Such recurrences are rare in the first 4 years following RT. Our results emphasize the need to obtain long follow-up in these patients, both to detect these recurrences promptly and to properly evaluate the results of S+RT.

Adult