Oral Language and Story Retelling During Preschool and Primary School Years: Developmental Patterns and Interrelationships.

Oral language and narrative skills constitute very critical factors for children's academic performance and social competence. The aim of the present study was to investigate the developmental patterns of story retelling, as well as the relationship between oral language and story retelling in preschool and primary school children. Two hundred and thirty-seven Greek-speaking children (4-5, 5-6 and 6-7 years old) participated in the study. Vocabulary knowledge, phonological awareness, morphological awareness skills and pragmatics were examined through a standardized psychometric test. Story retelling was measured by inviting the children to listen to a story and then retell it. Children's narratives were evaluated according to microstructure (use of conjunctions and lexical cohesion) and macrostructure (story grammar and temporal sequencing) criteria. The results showed that children performed better as they got older across all the oral language and story retelling tasks. Structural equation modeling revealed that vocabulary skills stand out as a stable predictor across all the three age groups. A new finding was also demonstrated, highlighting that morphological awareness, phonological awareness skills and pragmatics work together with vocabulary skills in diverse patterns at different points of a child's development, in order to support his/her ability to retell a story.

Alveolar bone histological necrosis observed prior to extractions in patients, who received bone-targeting agents.

OBJECTIVE: We reported the alveolar bone histology prior to dental extractions in cancer patients, who received bone-targeting agents (BTA). SUBJECTS AND METHODS: Fifty-four patients were included. Patients underwent extractions, and bone biopsies were taken. RESULTS: Extractions were performed due to pain, swelling, purulence, fistula, and numbness, not responding to treatment, in 40 patients (group A); extractions due to asymptomatic, non-restorable teeth, were performed in 14 patients (group B). Complete alveolar jaw bone histological necrosis was observed in 28 of 40 (70%) patients of group A and none of group B (p < .001). The development of clinical osteonecrosis (MRON) was assessed in 44 patients; 10 patients, who were also treated with Low Level Laser Treatments-LLLT, were excluded from this analysis, as the alternative therapies were a confounding factor. Twelve patients, with alveolar bone histological necrosis prior to extraction, developed medication-related osteonecrosis of the jaw (MRONJ) compared with two patients with vital or mixed vital/non-vital bone (p < .0007). BTAs >1 year and concurrent targeted therapy were also significantly associated with MRONJ (p = .016 and p = .050). CONCLUSION: Pain, swelling, purulence, fistula, and numbness were significantly associated with complete bone histological necrosis prior to extractions and increased MRONJ development. Research is justified to explore whether histological necrosis represents an early stage of osteonecrosis.

Long-term survival of patients with advanced colorectal cancer may not be due to the response to chemotherapy.

Our primary objective was to determine the median and overall survival and secondarily the response rate to first- and second-line chemotherapy of patients with advanced colorectal metastatic disease. Three-hundred and seventy-nine patients (median age 60 years, range 30-87 years) were enrolled from April 1993 to March 2000. Median follow-up was 6 years (range 3-10 years), until July 2003. All patients were evaluable for survival and 342 were evaluable for response and toxicity. Thirty-seven patients did not undergo chemotherapy. All patients had confirmed histology as well as metastatic disease based on radiological tests. First-line treatment was administered to 342 patients: leucovorin (LV) 30 mg/m2 and 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) 425 mg/m2. Three different combinations were given as second-line treatment during different chronological periods: i) 5-FU, mitomycin-C and doxorubicin (FAM); ii) 5-FU and cisplatin (CDDP) and iii) 5-FU, LV and irinotecan (CPT-II). Responses were observed as follows: first-line treatment 16.37%, after FAM 25%, following 5-FU-CDDP 26.83% and after 5-FU-LV-CPT-II, 30.61%. Survival of all patients was as follows: median 25 months (range 16.1-33.9 months). The longest survival was of patients on 5-FU-LV-CPT-II. Median survival of patients with stable disease was 19 months and of untreated patients 12 months. Patients with advanced colorectal cancer have a long median (25 months) and overall survival, despite low responsiveness to chemotherapy.