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Fludarabine and melphalan combined with in vivo alemtuzumab is a promising transplantation regimen for patients with AML or MDS and low tumor burden. For patients with active disease, this regimen provides at best modest palliation. Despite a low incidence of GVHD, transplantation is still associated with considerable nonrelapse mortality in patients with decreased performance status.

To compare the outcomes after D1 gastrectomy with those after modified D2 gastrectomy (preserving pancreas and spleen) performed by specialist surgeons for gastric cancer in a large UK NHS Trust. In all, 118 consecutive patients with gastric adenocarcinoma were referred by postcode, to undergo either a D1 gastrectomy (North Gwent (RJ), n ¼ 36, median age 76 years, 21 m) or a modified D2 gastrectomy (South Gwent (WL), n ¼ 82, 70 years, 57 m). Operative mortality in the two groups of patients was similar (D1 8.3% vs D2 7.3%, w 2 0.286, DF 1, P ¼ 0.593). Overall cumulative survival at 5 years was 32% after D1 gastrectomy compared to 59% after D2 gastrectomy (w 2 4.25, DF 1, P ¼ 0.0392). In patients with stage III cancers, survival was 8% after D1, compared with 33% after D2 gastrectomy (w 2 6.43, DF 1, P ¼ 0.0112). In a multivariate analysis, T stage (hazard ratio 2.339, 95% CI 1.683 -2.995, P ¼ 0.01), N stage (hazard ratio 4.026, 95% CI 3.536 -4.516, P ¼ 0.0001) and the extent of lymphadenectomy (hazard ratio 0.258, 95% CI -0.426 -0.942, P ¼ 0.0001) were independently associated with durations of survival. In conclusion, modified D2 gastrectomy can improve survival four-fold for patients with stage III gastric cancer, without significantly increasing morbidity and mortality when compared with a D1 gastrectomy. Opinion over the optimum resection for patients with gastric cancer remains divided, and the literature polarised. The impressive outcomes after D2 gastrectomy published in large retrospective series from Japan (Soga et al, 1979;Maruyama et al, 1987) have not been reproduced in randomised comparative studies from Europe (Bonenkamp et al, 1995(Bonenkamp et al, , 1999Cuschieri et al, 1996Cuschieri et al, , 1999. The two largest randomised studies both report significantly greater operative morbidity and mortality associated with an extended D2 lymphadenectomy when compared with the less aggressive D1 lymphadenectomy, and have failed to demonstrate any survival advantage for a D2 resection. Many of the serious complications associated with D2 resections were associated with resections of the pancreas and spleen (Bonenkamp et al, 1995;Cuschieri et al, 1996), and the best long-term survival was observed in patients undergoing D2 gastrectomy without pancreatico-splenectomy (Cuschieri et al, 1999). Although this latter report concluded than a classical D2 resection offered no survival advantage over a D1 resection, the possibility that a modified D2 resection, preserving pancreas and spleen, might be better than a D1 resection was not dismissed (Cuschieri et al, 1999).The first reports of outcomes after modified D2 gastrectomy for gastric cancer were originally published in Britain by Sue-Ling

The role of biodiversity in mediating ecosystem processes has been the subject of focused theoretical and empirical attention since the mid‐1990s. Theory predicts that the balance between species richness and identity effects will critically depend on the degree of environmental heterogeneity, which dictates the extent to which differences between species in patterns of resource use can be expressed. We conducted a mesocosm experiment to explicitly test this hypothesis. We manipulated the richness and identity of intertidal molluscan grazers, as well as the spatial heterogeneity of the substrate upon which they grazed. The magnitude of algal consumption was used as our focal ecosystem process. The grazer treatments consisted of three monocultures and a single polyculture including all three species; heterogeneity was represented as the proportion of topographically complex and flat substrate. Species identity had strong effects on homogeneous substrates, with the identity of the best‐performing species dependent on the substrate. On the heterogeneous substrate, suitable conditions for all three species were represented, allowing the expression of spatial complementarity of resource use and the enhancement of total algal consumption. Our findings provide the first explicit experimental evidence that spatial heterogeneity of the physical environment can play a key role in mediating effects of species diversity.

Multiplex PCR amplification of uidA, cth, invA, ctx, and tl genes was developed enabling simultaneous detection in shellfish of Escherichia coli, an indicator of fecal contamination and microbial pathogens, Salmonella typhimurium, Vibrio vulnificus, V. cholerae, and V. parahaemolyticus, respectively. Each of the five pairs of oligonucleotide primers was found to support PCR amplifications of only its targeted gene. The optimized multiplex PCR reaction utilized a PCR reaction buffer containing 2.5 mM MgCl2 and primer annealing temperature of 55 degrees C. Oyster tissue homogenate seeded with these microbial pathogens was subjected to DNA purification by the Chelextrade mark 100 (BioRad) method. The sensitivity of detection for each of the microbial pathogens was

Microbial biomass, community structure and activity were determined in the subsurface horizons of four contrasting soil types common to Alabama. Biomass and community structure were determined by analyzing the fatty acids of the extractable phospholipids. Activity was estimated by measuring the rate of enzymatic hydrolysis of fluorescein diacetate (FDA). In all four soils, biomass and activity declined with increasing depth; however, the magnitude and pattern of this decline varied as a function of soil type. Biomass concentrations in the lower Ap horizon ranged from 8.2 to 18.0 nmoles phospholipid/g dry wt soil. In the deepest subsoil horizons, the range was 0.0085 to 0.059 nmoles phospholipid/g dry wt soil. The rate of FDA hydrolysis was highly correlated with biomass (r=0.90). Polyenoic fatty acids, which are present only in cukaryotic microorganisms, were found in all horizons; however, their relative abundance differed as a function of soil type. Stepwise regression analysis revealed that soil characteristics could explain 89 and 82% of the variation in biomass and activity, respectively. The results indicated that the vertical distribution of microorganisms in a soil profile differs greatly as a function of soil type. Hence, soil type may be an important determinant as to whether potential ground‐water pollutants are biodegraded as they pass through the unsaturated zone of a soil profile.

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