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A total of 64 cases of pleural mesothelioma were reported in British Columbia between 1973 and 1980, 54 in males and 10 in females. There was a significant (p less than 0.05) increase in the incidence among males. The overall incidence rates were 4.9 and 0.9 per million person-years for males and females respectively. The age distribution of the cases was roughly exponential up to age 70 years. Almost all of the cases were clustered in Cowichan Valley, Capital and Greater Vancouver counties, where there was a high level of shipbuilding activity 30 to 40 years ago. The increased incidence in males may be related to this activity, which involved exposure to asbestos.

Pulmonary lesions developed in three patients with an invasive hydatidiform mole. At open thoracotomy the modules were found to contain molar tissue. Therapy with twice-weekly methotrexate induced complete clinical and biologic remission of the disease in all three patients.

A patient who developed Hodgkin's disease four years after infectious mononucleosis had elevated serum antibody titres to Epstein-Barr virus and delayed hypersensitivity reactions to membrane antigens prepared from fresh autologous spleen, from spleen cells of another Hodgkin's patient, and from cell lines known to carry the Epstein-Barr virus genome. Additional studies in more lymphoma patients will be needed to determine the significance of the reactivity against tumour and virus-associated antigens which has been documented in this patient.

A 23-year-old woman gravely ill with Pseudomonas septicemia secondary to presumed drug-induced bone marrow aplasia received marrow transplantation from two male HL-A identical sibling donors. She had a successful engraftment with excellent but temporary clinical improvement. Subsequently she succumbed to graft-versus-host disease manifested by Pseudomonas and Candida albicans septicemia, cytomegalovirus pneumonitis, three phases of dermatitis, nausea, vomiting, dysphagia, diarrhea, fever, edema and bone pain, with gradual but complete graft suppression by the 74th day after the transplantation. A second marrow transplant on the 70th day was unsuccessful.

Ten patients with metastatic prostatic cancer no longer responsive to conventional doses of estrogens (stilbestrol 15 mg. daily or equivalent) were treated with high doses of diethylstilbestrol diphosphate. Objective responses lasting from three to fifteen months were obtained in four patients; three of the patients had previously shown progressive disease following orchidectomy.Toxic manifestations consisted mainly of increased gynecomastia and water retention. No serious cardiovascular complications were encountered. This dose-response effect of estrogens indicates the persistence of hormone-dependent tumours in some patients with recurrent disease despite conventional estrogen therapy.