ABSTRACT
Possible selection bias from assignment of latitude-longitude coordinates to the place of residence of all Connecticut women diagnosed with breast cancer from 1992 to 1995 (N = 11,470) was evaluated. Exact address-matching was accomplished for 8,121 records (70.8%) and an additional 1,722 records (15.0%) were matched using relaxed criteria. We did not address-match 1,627 records (14.1%) due to missing address information or limitations of the Geographic Information Systems street file. The age-adjusted likelihood of address-matching records was significantly greater for women of color, those born within Connecticut, residents of urban locales or census tracts with low median family incomes and those cases diagnosed nearer to 1992. Few differences in address-matching were attributable to tumor characteristics or therapeutic modality.
Subject(s)
Breast Neoplasms/epidemiology , Adult , Aged , Breast Neoplasms/etiology , Breast Neoplasms/therapy , Connecticut/epidemiology , Female , Humans , Middle Aged , Odds Ratio , Selection Bias , Space-Time Clustering , Treatment OutcomeABSTRACT
The hypothesis that residence in a uniform medium-density residential development is associated with lower incidence of Lyme disease is tested with data from a rural, 12-town region of south-central Connecticut where the disease is hyperendemic. The residential setting for 424 cases identified by active surveillance from 1993 through 1995 was determined. Cases located within the Eastern Coastal ecologic region, where tick densities are known to be higher than inland and where most of the population in the region resides, were selected for further analysis. Within this region, residence in a homogeneous area of medium-density development at least 30 acres (12 ha) in size was associated with a two- to 10-fold lower level of risk than residence in surrounding less developed areas, depending on the estimate of residential population. Type of residential development may be an important factor to consider, in addition to other environmental variables, in studies of peridomestic vector-borne disease in human populations.
Subject(s)
Environment , Lyme Disease/epidemiology , Population Density , Rural Population , Connecticut/epidemiology , Housing , Humans , Risk Assessment , Risk FactorsABSTRACT
The cardiovascular effects of tubocurarine in patients anaesthetised with thiopentone or ketamine have been compared, using volume-pulse finger plethysmography, electrocardiography, sphygmomanometry and impedance cardiography for the clinical assessments. Tubocurarine potentiates the arterial hypotensive effect of thiopentone and reverses the hypertensive action of ketamine. It also prevents the dysrhythmic (adrenergic) reaction of the heart to orotracheal intubation and has less effect on the positive chronotropic and inotropic reactions thereto. Hypotensive doses of tubocurarine in patients anaesthetised with thiopentone do not prevent reflex constriction of the finger blood vessels in response to surgical stimuli (orotracheal intubation) which means that the drug is not a sympathetic ganglion blocker in man. It is concluded that tubocurarine is a myocardial depressant which acts, like verapamil, as a calcium ion antagonist.
