Cooking quality and compositional factors of potatoes of different varieties from several commercial locations /

Caption title.

The plea of the toiler ; factors of interest coincident with this æon of brawn vs. cunning ...

Cover-title : The red book ... The era of greed and graft ; brawn vs. brain.

The mechanical factors of digestion,

"Publications from the laboratory of physiology of Harvard University bearing on the mechanical factors of digestion" : p. 221-222.

The psychology of driving; factors of traffic enforcement.

Includes bibliography.

An analysis of cost factors of 1974 coal prices /

"June 15, 1975."

Annual report of the Division of Risk Assessment, National Center for Devices and Radiological Health /

Mode of access: Internet.

Sentinel node biopsy for breast cancer: Using local results for estimation of risk to the patient

Background: Sentinel node biopsy (SNB) is being increasingly used but its place outside randomized trials has not yet been established. Methods: The first 114 sentinel node (SN) biopsies performed for breast cancer at the Princess Alexandra Hospital from March 1999 to June 2001 are presented. In 111 cases axillary dissection was also performed, allowing the accuracy of the technique to be assessed. A standard combination of preoperative lymphoscintigraphy, intraoperative gamma probe and injection of blue dye was used in most cases. Results are discussed in relation to the risk and potential consequences of understaging. Results: Where both probe and dye were used, the SN was identified in 90% of patients. A significant number of patients were treated in two stages and the technique was no less effective in patients who had SNB performed at a second operation after the primary tumour had already been removed. The interval from radioisotope injection to operation was very wide (between 2 and 22 h) and did not affect the outcome. Nodal metastases were present in 42 patients in whom an SN was found, and in 40 of these the SN was positive, giving a false negative rate of 4.8% (2/42), with the overall percentage of patients understaged being 2%. For this particular group as a whole, the increased risk of death due to systemic therapy being withheld as a consequence of understaging (if SNB alone had been employed) is estimated at less than 1/500. The risk for individuals will vary depending on other features of the particular primary tumour. Conclusion: For patients who elect to have the axilla staged using SNB alone, the risk and consequences of understaging need to be discussed. These risks can be estimated by allowing for the specific surgeon's false negative rate for the technique, and considering the likelihood of nodal metastases for a given tumour. There appears to be no disadvantage with performing SNB at a second operation after the primary tumour has already been removed. Clearly, for a large number of patients, SNB alone will be safe, but ideally participation in randomized trials should continue to be encouraged.

Assessing the quality of risk factor survey data: lessons from the WHO MONICA Project

Background and purpose Survey data quality is a combination of the representativeness of the sample, the accuracy and precision of measurements, data processing and management with several subcomponents in each. The purpose of this paper is to show how, in the final risk factor surveys of the WHO MONICA Project, information on data quality were obtained, quantified, and used in the analysis. Methods and results In the WHO MONICA (Multinational MONItoring of trends and determinants in CArdiovascular disease) Project, the information about the data quality components was documented in retrospective quality assessment reports. On the basis of the documented information and the survey data, the quality of each data component was assessed and summarized using quality scores. The quality scores were used in sensitivity testing of the results both by excluding populations with low quality scores and by weighting the data by its quality scores. Conclusions Detailed documentation of all survey procedures with standardized protocols, training, and quality control are steps towards optimizing data quality. Quantifying data quality is a further step. Methods used in the WHO MONICA Project could be adopted to improve quality in other health surveys.