Importance:Previous studies of the role of dietary and supplementary calcium in age-related macular degeneration (AMD) have produced mixed results, suggesting that supplementation and decreased dietary intake are both harmful.Objective:To evaluate the association of baseline dietary and supplementary calcium intake with progression of AMD.Design, Setting, and Participants:This study involved secondary analyses of participants enrolled in the Age-Related Eye Disease Study (AREDS). The AREDS study (1992-2001) enrolled patients from academic and community-based retinal practices in the United States. Men and women with varying severity of AMD were included. Data analysis for this article occurred from September 2015 to December 2018.Exposures:Baseline self-reported dietary or supplementary calcium intake.Main Outcomes and Measures:Development of late AMD, geographic atrophy (central or noncentral), or neovascular AMD detected on centrally graded baseline and annual fundus photographs.Results:A total of 4751 participants were included (mean [SD] age, 69.4 [5.1] years); 4543 (95.6%) were white, and 2655 (55.9%) were female. Compared with those who were in the lowest quintile, the participants in the highest quintile of dietary calcium intake had a lower risk of developing late AMD (hazard ratio [HR], 0.73 [95% CI, 0.59-0.90]), central geographic atrophy (HR, 0.64 [95% CI, 0.48-0.86]), and any geographic atrophy (HR, 0.80 [95% CI, 0.64-1.00]). The participants in the highest tertile of supplementary calcium intake had a lower risk of developing neovascular AMD (HR, 0.70 [95% CI, 0.50-0.97]) compared with those who did not take calcium supplements. When stratified by sex, women in the highest quintile of dietary calcium intake had a lower risk of developing late AMD (HR, 0.73 [95% CI, 0.56-0.97]) compared with those in the lowest quintile. Women in the highest tertile of calcium supplementation had a lower risk of progression to neovascular AMD (HR, 0.67 [95% CI, 0.48-0.94]) compared with those who did not take calcium supplements. Similar findings were found in men for dietary calcium. Too few men took calcium supplements to allow for analyses.Conclusions and Relevance:In this secondary analysis, higher levels of dietary and supplementary calcium intake were associated with lower incidence of progression to late AMD in AREDS participants. The results may be owing to uncontrolled confounding or chance and should be considered hypothesis development requiring additional study.

Born in 1917 in Odessa, Russia; died in 1993 in Silver Spring, MD. Helped investigate the effects of environmental factors on cancer incidence, including breast cancer and lung cancer. Keywords: smoking; lung cancer; breast cancer; relative survival rate; epidemiology

Data from the 1971-1972 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey were used to examine the associations between cataract and age, race, sex, education, diabetes, systolic blood pressure, urban vs. rural residence, and average daily ultraviolet spectrum B (UV-B) radiation counts at the site of examination. The multivariate logistic risk function was applied to data on 2225 persons, aged 45-74, who had resided for at least half their lifetime in the state where their examination was conducted. Cataracts (cortical, nuclear or posterior subcapsular opacities consistent with best corrected visual acuity of 6/9 (20/30) or worse or aphakic status) were present in 413 persons. The multivariate analysis showed that they were more common among blacks, diabetics, and rural dwellers, and were positively associated with increasing age, increasing UV-B radiation counts at the site of the examination, and decreasing number of years spent in school. The association with cataracts was also present when latitude or sunlight hours was substituted for UV-B radiation counts.

With a recently developed statistical technique based on combinatorial methods/ cases of leukemia and lymphoma diagnosed among Connecticut residents during 1945–59 were tested for the presence of 1- and 2-year clusters within towns. The method had previously been found very powerful in detecting the case-clustering of poliomyelitis and infectious hepatitis. The leukemia cases, both childhood and all ages, showed no tendency to occur in 1- or 2-year clusters. The lymphoma (all ages) cases tended to cluster. When cases of leukemia and lymphoma were combined as if they had a common etiology, a result consistent with a hypothesis of no clustering was obtained.

Abstract This paper proposes a simplification of Greenwood's estimate of the standard error of the survival rate. The simplifying assumptions are (a) that cases enter the follow-up study at a uniform rate, (b) there are no losses to follow-up, and (c) the mortality risk for successive follow-up intervals is constant. Numerical examples drawn from cancer registry data indicate that the proposed estimate yields acceptable results under certain realistic circumstances despite some marked deviations from the simplifying assumptions. A table is given for rapid estimation of the standard error of the survival rate.

We are presenting a detailed 10-year survival analysis by stage, age, calendar period of diagnosis, and type of treatment for patients with cancer of the stomach diagnosed in the State of Connecticut between 1935 and 1954. Observed survival is measured relative to expected survival in the general population. Among patients diagnosed 1935–44, about 1 out of 5 who were expected to survive the 1st year after diagnosis, in fact survived; of those expected to live from the end of the 1st year through the 5th year, 1 out of 3 survived. Mortality among the 5-year survivors was far greater than that of persons in the general population of similar age. Patients diagnosed 1945–54 experienced slightly higher 5-year survival than those diagnosed 1935–44; this improvement in length of survival was associated with an increase in the percent of patients treated by surgical intervention and an increase in the survival time of the surgically treated patients. The data suggest that the delay from onset of symptoms to treatment was not shortened, but that mortality from operations was reduced. Five-year survival rates for stomach cancer in Connecticut are similar to the average obtained at 8 treatment centers in the United States.

We are presenting a detailed 20-year survival analysis by stage, age, calendar period of diagnosis, and treatment for cases of breast cancer diagnosed in the State of Connecticut between 1935 and 1954, and are including a review of statistical methodology in survival analysis. Observed survival is measured relative to expected survival in the general population. The 5-year relative survival rate for cases diagnosed during the first 10-year calendar period, 1935–44, was 50 percent. Mortality among the 5-year survivors was far in excess of that expected, based on general population experience. The 5-year relative survival rate for cases diagnosed during the second 10-year calendar period, 1945–54, was 56 percent. There was, however, no evidence of improvement in the 10-year survival rate. In general, there appeared to be little variation in the agespecific survival rates, except that among localized cases, women 75 to 84 years of age had a somewhat more favorable experience than women under 75, and among cases with regional spread, women under 35 had a lower survival rate than older women. The survival results in treatment of breast cancer in Connecticut are similar to those obtained in several well-known treatment centers.