Summary.-A system is proposed by the UICC for assessing response to treatment of advanced breast cancers.

A prospective study was carried out, between January 1980 and March 1982, of all women who presented to the Breast Cancer Unit, Guy's Hospital, with a second primary breast cancer. The percentage of new simultaneous tumours detected clinically or by mammography was approximately 3 per cent. Routine mammographic screening of the contralateral breasts of patients with unilateral disease increased the rate of detection, fivefold, of simultaneous bilateral cancers. The incidence of nonsimultaneous bilateral disease was 7.6 second cancers per thousand patients at risk per year. The annual rate of occurrence of second primary cancers was a constant event and showed no trend either to increase or to decrease with follow-up. However, the risk of a nonsimultaneous second cancer was strongly correlated with age at first primary. Women who developed their first breast cancers under the age of 40 years had three times the risk of developing a second breast cancer compared with those who developed their first cancer after the age of 40. The risk of a second nonsimultaneous primary was 5.9 times that of the risk of occurrence of cancer in the first breast in the general female population.

Background: Breast cancer is the most frequent diagnosed visceral cancer with 13400 new cases annually in Iranian women. There are a few studies in the west countries that indicates that breast cancer patients with higher educational background had better prognosis than patients with lower education background. Objectives: In a retrospective single center study we compared educational background and its relationship to pathological stage and their treatment modalities among 3010 breast cancer patients. Methods: Medical records of 3010 patients with breast cancer from database at Cancer Research Center of the Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences were reviewed and univariate logistic regression analysis was used for association between education background and its relationship to pathological breast cancer stage and treatment modalities. Results: The average age at diagnosis was 49.1 years ± 11.6 years. The proportion of breast cancer patients' levels of education were 4.2 % illiterate, 7.8% primary school, 7.5% middle school, 21.8% high school and diploma, 18.6% university and above and 40.1% unspeci ed. Based on univariate logistic regression analysis, the illiterate group had 65.1% of early stage breast cancer (stage I and stage II), and the university and above group had 73.4% of early stage breast cancer (p-value<.001). The rate of receiving chemotherapy, radiotherapy and endocrine therapy was in the illiterate group 35.7%, 42.1%, 50% and was in the university and above group 93.7%, 64.3% and 71.1% respectively(p-value<.001). The rate of breast conserving surgery (BCS) in the illiterate group, the primary school, the middle school, the high school and diploma, and the university and above group was 15.1%, 18%, 16.3%, 42.5%, and 73.2% respectively (p-value<.001). Conclusions: The ndings of this study showed that education background have a significant impact on pathological staging and the selection of treatment modalities.

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The cycloaddition of acetylenes with azides to give the corresponding 1,4-disubstituted 1,2,3-triazoles is reported using immobilised reagents and scavengers in pre-packed glass tubes in a modular flow reactor.

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Microwave chemistry has already impacted significantly on the everyday synthesis of organic molecules. The adoption and integration of this liberating technology has permitted a resurrection of many synthetic transformations that were previously considered too extreme in their conditions (temperatures, pressures, reaction times) to be synthetically useful. Furthermore, whole arrays of additional chemical transformations have been devised under microwave heating that allow access to more diverse chemical architectures via more expedient routes. Continuous flow processing of chemical intermediates taking advantage of the unique heating mechanism and characteristics of microwave irradiation will certainly be the next evolutionary step forward in this area. The synergistic combination afforded by the simultaneous application of these two core processing tools will enhance still further the synthetic capabilities of tomorrow's chemists. This short review aims to highlight the current developments and future potential offered by continuous flow microwave mediated synthesis.

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