This historical cohort study has provided incidence data for thyroid disease over a twenty-year period for a representative cross-sectional sample of the population, and has allowed the determination of the importance of prognostic risk factors for thyroid disease identified twenty years earlier.

SUMMARY A survey has been conducted in Whickham, County Durham, to determine the prevalence of thyroid disorders in the community. Two thousand seven hundred and seventy‐nine people (82.4% of the available sample) were seen in the survey. The prevalence of overt hyperthyroidism was 19/1000 females rising to 27/1000 females when possible cases were included, compared with 1.6–2.3/1000 males. The prevalence of overt hyothyroidism was 14/1000 females rising to 19/1000 females when possible cases were included, compared with less than 1/1000 males. The prevalence of spontaneous overt hypothyroidism (excluding iatrogenic cases) was 10/1000 females or 15/1000 females including unconfirmed cases. Minor degrees of hypothyroidism were defined on the basis of elevated serum thyrotrophin (TSH) levels in the absence of obvious clinical features of hypothyroidism. TSH levels did not vary with age in males but increased markedly in females after the age of 45 years. The rise of TSH with age in females was virtually abolished when persons with thyroid antibodies were excluded from the sample. TSH levels above 6 mu/1 were shown to reflect a significant lowering of circulating thyroxine levels and showed a strong association with thyroid antibodies in both sexes, independent of age. Elevated TSH levels (>6mu/l) were recorded in 7.5% of females and 2.8% of males of all ages. Thyroglobulin antibodies were present in 2% of the sample. Thyroid cytoplasmic antibodies were present in 6.8% of the sample (females 10.3%, males 2.7%) and their frequency did not vary significantly with age in males but increased markedly in females over 45 years of age. 3% of the sample (females 5.1%, males 1.1%) had thyroid antibodies and elevated TSH levels and the relative risk of a high TSH level in subjects with antibodies was 20:1 for males and 13:1 for females, independent of age. Small goitres (palpable but not visible) were found in 8.6% of the sample and obvious goitres (palpable and visible) in 6.9%. Goitres were four times more common in females than in males and were most commonly found in younger rather than older females. TSH levels were slightly but not significantly lower in those with goitre than in those without goitre. There was a weak association between goitre and antibodies in females but not males.

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New images of M31 at 24, 70, and 160 mm taken with the Multiband Imaging Photometer for Spitzer (MIPS) reveal the morphology of the dust in this galaxy. This morphology is well represented by a composite of two logarithmic spiral arms and a circular ring (radius ∼10 kpc) of star formation offset from the nucleus. The two spiral arms appear to start at the ends of a bar in the nuclear region and extend beyond the star-forming ring. As has been found in previous work, the spiral arms are not continuous, but composed of spiral segments. The star-forming ring is very circular except for a region near M32 where it splits. The lack of well-defined spiral arms and the prominence of the nearly circular ring suggest that M31 has been distorted by interactions with its satellite galaxies. Using new dynamical simulations of M31 interacting with M32 and NGC 205, we find that, qualitatively, such interactions can produce an offset, split ring like that seen in the MIPS images.

LOBALLY, CERVICAL CANCER IS the second most common cause of cancer morbidity and mortality in women. 1 Human papillomavirus (HPV) infection has been identified as a necessary cause for the development of cervical cancer, with HPV genotypes 16 and 18 accounting for approximately 70% of cervical cancer cases. Prevention of cervical cancer using either the bivalent (HPV-16 and HPV-18) or quadrivalent (HPV-6, HPV-11, HPV-16, and HPV-18) vaccine is the goal of immu-Author Affiliations are listed at the end of this article.

We present the results from a survey of NGC 2244 from 3.6 to 24 µm with the Spitzer Space Telescope. The 24µm-8µm-3.6µm color composite image of the region shows that the central cavity surrounding the multiple O and B stars of NGC2244 contains a large amount of cool dust visible only at 24µm. Our survey gives a detailed look at disk survivability within the hot-star-dominated environment in this cavity. Using mid infrared two color diagrams ([3.6]-[4.5] vs [5.8]-[8.0]) we identified 337 class II and 25 class I objects out of 1084 objects detected in all four of these bands with photometric uncertainty better than 10%. Including the 24 µm data, we found 213 class II and 20 class I sources out of 279 stars detected also at this latter band. The center of the class II density contours is in very good agreement with the center of the cluster detected in the 2MASS images. We studied the distribution of the class II sources relative to the O stars and found that the effect of high mass stars on the circumstellar disks is significant only in their immediate vicinity.

A total of 86 galaxies have been detected at 60 µm in the high galactic latitude portion of the IRAS minisurvey. The surface density of detected galaxies with flux densities greater than 0.5 Jy is 0.25 deg-2 • Virtually all the galaxies detected are spiral galaxies and have an infrared to blue luminosity ratio ranging from 50 to 0.5. For the infrared-selected sample, no obvious correlation exists between infrared excess and color temperature. The infrared flux from 10 to 100 µm contributes approximately 5% of the blue luminosity for galaxies in the magnitude range 14 < mpg< 18 mag. The fraction of interacting galaxies is between one-eighth and one-fourth of the sample.