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Cancer, Vol. 9999, No. 9999. (2008), pp. 3450-3458.The question of whether stress poses a risk for cancer progression has been difficult to answer. A randomized clinical trial tested the hypothesis that cancer patients coping with their recent diagnosis but receiving a psychologic intervention would have improved survival compared with patients who were only assessed.A total of 227 patients who were surgically treated for regional breast cancer participated. Before beginning adjuvant cancer therapies, patients were assessed with psychologic and behavioral measures and had a health evaluation, and a 60-mL blood sample was drawn. Patients were randomized to Psychologic Intervention plus assessment or Assessment only study arms. The intervention was psychologist led; conducted in small groups; and included strategies to reduce stress, improve mood, alter health behaviors, and maintain adherence to cancer treatment and care. Earlier articles demonstrated that, compared with the Assessment arm, the Intervention arm improved across all of the latter secondary outcomes. Immunity was also enhanced.After a median of 11 years of follow-up, disease recurrence was reported to occur in 62 of 212 (29%) women and death was reported for 54 of 227 (24%) women. Using Cox proportional hazards analysis, multivariate comparison of survival was conducted. As predicted, patients in the Intervention arm were found to have a reduced risk of breast cancer recurrence (hazards ratio of 0.55; P = .034) and death from breast cancer (HR of 0.44; P = .016) compared with patients in the Assessment only arm. Follow-up analyses also demonstrated that Intervention patients had a reduced risk of death from all causes (HR of 0.51; P = .028).Psychologic interventions as delivered and studied here can improve survival. Cancer 2008. © 2008 American Cancer Society.Barbara Andersen, Hae-Chung Yang, William Farrar, Deanna Golden-Kreutz, Charles Emery, Lisa Thornton, Donn Young, William, citeulike.org

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 102, No. 10. (8 March 2005), pp. 3840-3845.Unraveling cause-and-effect relationships in the nervous system is challenging because some biological processes begin stochastically, take a significant amount of time to unfold, and affect small neuronal subpopulations that can be difficult to isolate and measure. Single-cell approaches are slow, subject to user bias, and sometimes too laborious to achieve sample sizes large enough to detect important effects. Here, we describe an automated imaging and analysis system that enables us to follow the fates of individual cells and intracellular proteins over time. Observations can be quantified in a high-throughput manner with minimal user bias. We have adapted survival analysis methods to determine whether and how factors measured during longitudinal analysis predict a particular biological outcome. The ability to monitor complex processes at single-cell resolution quickly, quantitatively, and over long intervals should have wide applications for biology. 10.1073/pnas.0409777102Montserrat Arrasate, Steven Finkbeiner, citeulike.org

Journal of clinical oncology : official journal of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, Vol. 26, No. 28. (1 October 2008), pp. 4672-4678.PURPOSE: No biomarkers have been identified to predict outcome with the use of an antiangiogenesis agent for cancer. Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) genetic variability has been associated with altered risk of breast cancer and variable promoter activity. Therefore, we evaluated the association of VEGF genotype with efficacy and toxicity in E2100, a phase III study comparing paclitaxel versus paclitaxel plus bevacizumab as initial chemotherapy for metastatic breast cancer. PATIENTS AND METHODS: DNA was extracted from tumor blocks of patients from E2100. Three hundred sixty-three samples were available to evaluate associations between genotype and outcome. Genotyping was performed for selected polymorphisms in VEGF and VEGF receptor 2. Testing for associations between each polymorphism and efficacy and toxicity was performed. RESULTS: The VEGF-2578 AA genotype was associated with a superior median overall survival (OS) in the combination arm when compared with the alternate genotypes combined (hazard ratio = 0.58; 95% CI, 0.36 to 0.93; P = .023). The VEGF-1154 A allele also demonstrated a superior median OS with an additive effect of each active allele in the combination arm but not the control arm (hazard ratio = 0.62; 95% CI, 0.46 to 0.83; P = .001). Two additional genotypes, VEGF-634 CC and VEGF-1498 TT, were associated with significantly less grade 3 or 4 hypertension in the combination arm when compared with the alternate genotypes combined (P = .005 and P = .022, respectively). CONCLUSION: Our data support an association between VEGF genotype and median OS as well as grade 3 or 4 hypertension when using bevacizumab in metastatic breast cancer.BP Schneider, M Wang, M Radovich, GW Sledge, S Badve, A Thor, DA Flockhart, B Hancock, N Davidson, J Gralow, M Dickler, EA Perez, M Cobleigh, T Shenkier, S Edgerton, KD Miller,, citeulike.org

The Journal of Ecology, Vol. 85, No. 3. (1997), pp. 277-287.1 Lefkovitch transition matrices were used to determine vital demographic rates of a natural population of Taraxacum officinale in Morgantown, WV, USA. Separate size transition matrices were calculated for each of four seasons, October-January, January--April, April--July, and July--October, to test if demographic rates vary as a function of season and if size-specific rates vary differentially among seasons. Season-dependent demography was also compared for four phenotype classes segregated by cluster analysis of leaf morphology. 2 The finite rate of increase for the entire population was largest in autumn (October-January) and declined throughout the rest of the year. Overall, there was a small reduction in the population size. Size-specific probabilities of survival, growth and fertility varied dramatically among seasons. Sensitivity analyses showed that small individuals were particularly important to population growth from autumn to spring. Larger individuals were more important during summer. 3 Highly season-dependent demographic rates have large implications for population distribution and persistence since increased vulnerability to perturbation during particular seasons may constrain population growth and stability. Although T. officinale is a long-lived perennial, annual censuses may mask the importance of certain individuals or life history traits for maintenance of genetic variability and population viability. 4 Seasonal and annual finite rates of increase also varied as a function of phenotype class. Of two phenotype classes which had identical annual growth rates, one grew better in cool seasons while the second performed better in warm seasons. Direct competition for resources should be reduced by such inverse patterns of demography across seasons. 5 If phenotype classes are to some degree genetically determined, the differential responses observed here suggest that temporal variation in the environment could explain the maintenance of genetic diversity within populations.MC Vavrek, JB Mcgraw, HS Yang, citeulike.org

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J. Veg. Sci., Vol. 14, No. 5. (2003), pp. 625-636.The endemic New Caledonian conifer Agathis ovata occurs as an emergent tree in fire-prone shrublands (maquis), and fire-sensitive rainforest. Growth, survivorship and recruitment over 5 yr were compared for populations from forest and maquis on ultramafic substrates in New Caledonia to investigate whether demographic behaviour varied in response to the strongly contrasting forest and shrubland environments. Growth of seedlings and of small (30-100 cm height) and large (100 cm height; 5 cm DBH) saplings was slow, but varied significantly among stages, site types and years. The greatest difference in growth rates was among stages, seedlings growing 0.34 cm.yr-1, small saplings 1.06 cm.yr-1 and large saplings 2.13 cm.yr-1. Tree DBH increased by only 0.05 cm.yr-1 and, based on these rates, individuals with DBH of 30 cm are estimated to be more than 700 yr old. Few trees (3.5%) produced cones in any year and seedling recruitment was low, but some recruitment was recorded each year in both maquis and forest. Rates of recruitment per parent were highest in forest (1.28.yr-1, cf 0.78.yr-1), but the higher density of trees in maquis meant that overall recruitment was greater there (92 ha-1.yr-1, cf 56 ha-1.yr-1). Seedling mortality ranged from 0.9 to 2.9% among years with no significant difference between maquis and forest. No sapling mortality was recorded, but annual tree mortality ranged from 0 to 1.4%. Evidence from a recently burned site indicated that while trees may survive fire, seedlings and saplings do not. Post-fire seedling recruitment per ha from surviving trees was four times lower than in unburned sites, but growth rates were four times higher. Similar demographic attributes, including high survivorship, low growth rate and low rates of recruitment over a long reproductive life, characterize Agathis ovata populations in both maquis and rainforest in New Caledonia and are indicative of a broad tolerance of light environments that is unusual among tree species. These demographic attributes help to explain the long-term persistence of the species in these strongly contrasting habitats.NJ Enright, BP Miller, GLW Perry, citeulike.org