Cancer
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The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Revitalization Act of 1993 mandated the appropriate inclusion of minorities in all NIH-funded research. Twenty years after this act, the proportion of minority patients enrolled in cancer clinical trials remains persistently low. Clinical trials are vehicles for the development and evaluation of therapeutic and preventive agents under scientifically rigorous conditions. Without representation in trials, it is projected that disparities in the cancer burden for minorities will increase. ⋯ Renewing the emphasis for minority participation in clinical trials is warranted. Policy changes are recommended.
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Pancreatic cancer is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in the Medicare population. Whether the health care burden of pancreatic cancer has changed over the last decade is unknown. ⋯ For Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries, initial pancreatic cancer hospitalization, surgical resection, and rehospitalization rates increased, but 1-year mortality rates declined over the last decade.
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The objective of the current study was to determine the best set of predictors of psychological disorders, regrets, health-related quality of life, and mental health function among bereaved caregivers of patients with cancer, thereby identifying promising targets for interventions to improve bereavement adjustment. ⋯ Reducing caregiver distress, encouraging advance care planning by patients, and improving patients' quality of death appear to be promising targets of interventions to improve caregiver bereavement adjustment.
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In their previous analysis of papillary thyroid carcinomas (PTCs) from an Ukrainian-American cohort that was exposed to iodine-131 ((131) I) from the Chernobyl accident, the authors identified RET/PTC rearrangements and other driver mutations in 60% of tumors. ⋯ The authors report the occurrence of ETV6-NTRK3 rearrangements in thyroid cancer and demonstrate that this rearrangement is significantly more common in tumors associated with exposure to (131) I and has a borderline significant dose response. Moreover, ETV6-NTRK3 rearrangement can be directly induced in thyroid cells by ionizing radiation in vitro and, thus, may represent a novel mechanism of radiation-induced carcinogenesis.