Occurrence of second neoplasms in chronic lymphocytic leukemia. Experience at Padua Hospital between 1979 and 1991

We report a retrospective study about the incidence of second neoplasms (SN) in patients affected by chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) admitted to Padua Hospital between 1989 and 1991, comparing data with those of a similar population. We examined the records of 212 patients, finding in 19 of them 22 second neoplasms; the most common kind was lung cancer. There was an increased incidence of SN, without statistic significance if compared with all sites of cancers in the general population, especially during the first 2 years from the diagnosis of CLL. In accordance with the majority of authors, there is an unknown connection between the two diseases, but certainly independent of chemotherapy with alkylating agents.

Electrocardiograms in hypertensive subjects from a population random sample: basic characteristics and correlations with some biological variables

During the initial phase of the WHO "Community Control Programme of Hypertension" in Italy, 1,190 hypertensives (of both sexes, aged 20-64) were identified through the screnning of 5,856 people randomly selected from the whole population of the community of Camposampiero (Padova), and had a standard ECG tracing recorded. ECGs were all read according to the 2nd version of the Minnesota code (MC), by only one coder. First of all, the prevalence of the various items of MC in the two sexes was calculated. Absolutely normal ECGs (item 1-0) were found in 41.1% of the examined subjects; another 23.3% had only a shift of the transition zone to the right or to the left (items 9-4). Among pathological codes, the most frequent were those of class 3 relating to left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) (i.e. 3:1 or 3:3) and those of classes 4, 5 and 7 relating to myocardial ischaemia (ISC) (i.e. 4:1-3 or 5:1-3 or 7-1). The overall frequencies of LVH and, respectively, of ISC (calculated by suitably grouping the above described items) were as follows. LVH: 21.3% in males (M), 14.6% in females (F); ISC: 5.7% in M, 18.1% in F. A significant (p less than 0.005) positive correlation with age was found both for LVH and ISC codes in F, only for ISC codes in M. A significant negative correlation between LVH codes and body mass index (BMI) was instead evident only in males.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)