Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to S J Kennedy.
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BACKGROUND: The authors conducted the current study to determine whether personality predisposes some individuals to develop cancer. METHODS: The current study examined the role of personality variables in 2224 older women recalled for assessment after routine mammography in a breast screening program. Using a semiprospective design, subjects completed self-report measures of defense style, locus of control, emotional expression and control, self-esteem, trait anxiety, and state anxiety and depression while waiting for medical examination. Multivariate analysis of variance was used to control for known risk factor variables and to examine differences between 3 control groups (normal tissue controls, benign/cystic controls not requiring biopsy, and benign biopsy controls) and 298 breast carcinoma subjects. RESULTS: No differences were detected between breast carcinoma subjects and controls based on measures of mature, immature, and neurotic defense style; locus of control of behavior; emotional expression-in, emotional expression-out, and emotional control; self-esteem; anxiety; or depression. CONCLUSIONS: The results of the current study found no evidence to support an independent association between these personality measures and the development of breast carcinoma. [See accompanying article on pages 686-97, this issue.]
BACKGROUND: The evidence supporting an association between life event stress and breast carcinoma development is inconsistent. METHODS: Five hundred fourteen women requiring biopsy after routine mammographic breast screening were interviewed using the Brown and Harris Life Event and Difficulties Schedule. Other psychosocial variables assessed included social support, emotional control, and defense style. Biopsy results identified 239 women with breast carcinoma and 275 women with benign breast disease. Multiple logistic regression analysis was used to distinguish between breast carcinoma subjects and benign breast disease controls based on these psychosocial variables and their interactions. RESULTS: The findings of the current study revealed a significant interaction between highly threatening life stressors and social support. Women experiencing a stressor objectively rated as highly threatening and who were without intimate emotional social support had a ninefold increase in risk of developing breast carcinoma. CONCLUSIONS: Although there was no evidence of an independent association between life event stress and breast carcinoma, the findings of the current study provided strong evidence that social support interacts with highly threatening life stressors to increase the risk of breast carcinoma significantly. [See also accompanying article on pages 679-85, this issue.]
A mood induction paradigm was used to examine dysphoria-related changes in two types of cognitive processing in individuals who had previously experienced depression. Formerly depressed patients (n = 23) and never-depressed controls (n = 27) completed the Dysfunctional Attitudes Scale, a self-report measure of effortful processing, and performed the Implicit Association Test, an automatic-reaction time task that measures evaluative bias, before and after a negative-mood induction. The formerly depressed group showed both an increase in endorsement of dysfunctional attitudes and a more negative evaluative bias for self-relevant information after the induction, relative to controls--however, there was no association between the mood-linked changes observed on these two measures. The shift in evaluative bias shown by the formerly depressed group was similar to that seen in a group of 32 currently depressed individuals. These findings suggest that even a mild negative mood in formerly depressed individuals can reinstate some of the cognitive features observed in depression itself.
Phytosterols are natural constituents of the human diet, and as part of an extensive programme of safety evaluation studies investigating their use as a novel food ingredient, the possible oestrogenic effects of phytosterols have been investigated using a combination of in vitro and in vivo assays. Competitive binding with the immature rat uterine oestrogen receptor (ER) has been used to measure the ability of phytosterols to bind to ERs while the transcriptional activation of oestrogen-responsive genes has been examined in an oestrogen-inducible yeast screen. Phytosterols did not display any activity in these in vitro assays. Uterotrophic assays have been conducted to investigate the potential for phytosterols to elicit an oestrogenic response when administered orally to immature female rats (n = 10) at doses of 0, 5, 50 or 500 mg/kg/day for 3 consecutive days. Phytosterols (a well characterized mixture of beta-sitosterol, campesterol and stigmasterol) and phytosterol esters (the previous phytosterol mixture esterified with fatty acids from sunflower oil) did not exhibit oestrogenic activity in the immature female rat using uterine wet weight as the endpoint. Beta-oestradiol (0.4 mg/kg/day) consistently produced a significant increase in uterus weights. Coumestrol (a known phytoestrogen) was also tested as a weak positive control and produced a dose response at doses of 20, 40 and 80 mg/kg/day in the uterotrophic assay. In conclusion, we have shown that phytosterols do not bind to the ER and do not stimulate transcriptional activity of the human ER in a recombinant yeast strain. In addition, there was no indication of oestrogenicity from the uterotrophic assay when the material was administered by oral gavage to immature female rats.
BACKGROUND: Established risk factors are associated with between 25 and 56% of breast cancer cases, but the relative importance and relevance to different age groups is unclear. METHODS: This case-control study examines established risk factors in 298 women with breast cancer and 1926 women without breast cancer aged 40-87 who were recalled for assessment following routine mammography. RESULTS: The cancer group were significantly older than the non-cancer group (F1,222 = 107.6; P < 0.0001). Postmenopausal obesity increased the odds of developing breast cancer (OR: 2.35; CI: 1.33-4.16). The breast cancer group were more likely to have used oral contraceptives (OR: 1.50; CI: 1.09-2.05), and women who used contraceptives for more than 10 years in total were at the highest risk (OR: 1.73; CI: 1.13-2.65). Daily consumption of alcohol was also associated with increased risk of developing breast cancer (OR: 1.62; CI: 1.13-2.33). Reproductive factors and a family history of breast cancer did not affect the odds of developing breast cancer and the reasons for these findings are explored. CONCLUSIONS: Results suggest that the effects of weight reduction in reducing postmenopausal breast cancer risk should be assessed.
We report a 9 year old girl with microcephaly and self-limiting dilated cardiomyopathy. Additional features include mental retardation, delayed developmental milestones, and minor dysmorphic features. This is the second reported case of this phenotype, which is believed to be a new autosomal recessive syndrome.
The Australian powder diffractometer at the Photon Factory is capable of recording multiple powder-diffraction scans in less than 5 min per pattern using imaging plates in Debye-Scherrer geometry. This, coupled with incrementing the X-ray beam energy in suitably small steps (down to approximately 2 eV) between exposures, allows fast collection of anomalous diffraction data. Data collected from a copper oxide-based superconductor at energies near the Cu K-absorption edge are presented, along with an account of the technique used to extract multiple-exposure powder-diffraction data from imaging plates.
The purpose of this study was to assess the effects of two brief training interventions designed to improve nurses' and nurse-midwives' knowledge about the maternal serum triple screen. The low intervention consisted of written information on the triple screen; the high intervention consisted of written information plus a one hour oral presentation. Knowledge was assessed at baseline, immediately following the oral presentation (high intervention only), and one month following the interventions. Forty-seven nurses, nurse-midwives and nursing assistants participated. Sixteen respondents (34 per cent) who routinely talk to patients about the triple screen obtained a score of less than 70 per cent on the knowledge questionnaire at baseline assessment. Respondents' knowledge about the maternal serum triple screen included areas that needed to be improved in order for them to be able to provide patients with accurate and complete information. Both interventions assessed in this study resulted in an increase in participants' knowledge about the maternal serum triple screen, however the high intervention was more effective. This study presents evidence that improvements in health care professionals' knowledge can be made with brief educational interventions.
Earlier reports that benzoic acid is uterotrophic to the rat and mouse and that clofibrate is uterotrophic to the rat have not been confirmed. The studies reported here involved the use of a range of test protocols and dose levels, including the protocols/dose levels used by the original investigators. In addition, both chemicals were inactive in a human estrogen receptor (hER alpha) yeast estrogenicity assay. It is concluded that benzoic acid and clofibrate are not estrogenic in the assays used here. This conclusion has implications for the compilation of lists of endocrine-disrupting chemicals.
In the present study, two groups of 21 subjects with either high or low fear of both snakes (or spiders) and damaged electrical outlets/appliances participated in a two phase experiment. After reading a description of an illusory correlation experiment, subjects were asked to imagine themselves participating in it. They rated their expectations for the number of occasions on which slides of snakes, electrical outlets, and flowers would be followed by either a shock, tone, or nothing. As predicted, both high and low-fear subjects reported an expectancy bias for both phylogenetic and ontogenetic fear-relevant stimuli and shock. In the second phase subjects were actually exposed to the random slide/outcome presentation. Only high-fear subjects demonstrated a covariation bias which was specific to phylogenetic fear-relevant slides and shock, indicating all other biases were effectively attenuated.
Rapid regulatory developments in the area of environmental endocrine disruption present a series of potential problems that are identified and illustrated with examples taken from the recent literature. A list of priorities is provided, including the need for additional epidemiological and wildlife studies, the derivation of a coordinated testing strategy, agreement on the toxicities expected of endocrine disrupting agents, and acceptance that whole animal assays will be uniquely critical in this area of toxicology. The intrinsic difficulty of attempting to simultaneously study all aspects of endocrine disruption indicates the need to reduce the scope of the problem, which can be achieved by first studying toxicities mediated by sex hormone receptors.
Despite the frequent description of 6q- structural abnormalities in human leukemias and lymphomas, rearrangements of the c-MYB locus have not been detected. We have detected a rearrangement in the c-MYB proto-oncogene in the cell line CCRF-CEM, an immature T-cell leukemia cell line which is not 6q-. Due to this rearrangement, a large portion of the c-MYB promoter conserved between the human and murine c-MYB genes is lost. The rearranged locus, which we have designated MRR (MYB rearranged region), has been cloned and mapped to chromosome 6. Field inversion gel electrophoresis (FIGE) studies reveal that the MRR sequence is linked to the c-MYB locus, suggesting that the rearrangement is due to a submicroscopic deletion. The rearrangement appears to have no effect on c-MYB promoter activity as analyzed in CCRF-CEM cells. The normal locus of the MRR sequence has been cloned from a human placental genomic library. Partial sequence analysis of this clone reveals that a portion of the DNA lost in the rearrangement shows a high degree of homology to a member of the myc family of oncogenes. Thus the characterization of this rearrangement has yielded a new set of probes for the study of chromosome 6q abnormalities in human leukemias and lymphomas and provides the first evidence for potential involvement of the c-MYB locus itself in submicroscopic deletions within chromosome 6.
The authors conducted a preliminary evaluation of the potential of superparamagnetic iron oxide as contrast material for delineation of the bowel. Ten patients with various pancreatic diseases and 18 patients with suspected retroperitoneal disease underwent T1- and T2-weighted MR imaging before and after contrast material was administered. Two radiologists reviewed randomized images and scored them for depiction of anatomic structures and abnormalities. In most patients, postcontrast T1-weighted images showed improved delineation of the retroperitoneal small bowel (duodenum), stomach, and pancreas. Postcontrast T2-weighted images showed improved delineation of retroperitoneal small bowel, para-aortic region, peripancreatic fat, and renal veins. There was no improvement in delineation of retroperitoneal diseases, except for lymphadenopathy, which was better seen on both T1- and T2-weighted postcontrast images. Preliminary results suggest that superparamagnetic iron oxide is a useful contrast agent for delineating some normal retroperitoneal structures, lymphadenopathy, and pancreatic disease and that it is less useful in evaluating other retroperitoneal masses.
Treatment with a high dose of oestradiol for 6 months caused hyperprolactinaemia and pituitary hyperplasia in female Wistar-Furth rats. Changes in the vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP) and dopamine content of the hypothalamus and pituitary were also found. The hypothalamic dopamine concentration was only slightly reduced and, although the concentration of dopamine in the pituitary was less in treated animals, the total pituitary content was increased. The concentration of VIP in the pituitary was increased by oestradiol treatment but decreased in the non-median eminence hypothalamus. In the median eminence the VIP content was increased by oestradiol treatment and the amount present correlated positively and significantly with pituitary wet weight in animals treated with both oestradiol and fluphenazine. In Fischer 344 rats, oestradiol produced greater incremental changes in pituitary wet weight and plasma concentrations of prolactin than in Wistar controls and the increase in the pituitary concentration of VIP was five times greater. Although peptide turnover has not been measured, these results suggest that oestradiol, as well as having a direct action, stimulates pituitary lactotrophs by increasing pituitary concentrations of VIP.
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Measurements of the human ocular fundus in the three spatial dimensions have not been absolute because measuring techniques have used the optical system of the eye as part of the total ophthalmoscopic system. The ophthalmoscopic magnification due to the total dioptric power of an individual eye can vary substantially from that of the average eye. A new method has been developed to form interference fringes on the fundus so that the fringe spacing can be calculated within a small error by using measured values. The photographed fringes then act as a scale at the fundus with the fringe spacings serving as the graduations, thus allowing accurate absolute measurements of the fundus through the interfering ocular media.