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This study investigates the role of divorce and remarriage on cognitive outcomes of children. Using the rich panel data information from the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY), collected biennially since 1994, we investigate the association between children's math and reading performance and divorce and remarriage relative to intact families. We find that children who stay-in or move-to non-intact families have lower reading scores than those who stay in intact families. Although initial findings indicate that family structure has an overall small effect on children's math performance, we find a differential impact of family structure on Math performance across gender and cultural heritage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analysed the fertility of women who migrated to Canada before reaching age 19, using the 20 per cent sample of the Canadian censuses from 1991 to 2006. Fertility increases with age at immigration, and is particularly high for those immigrating in late adolescence. This pattern prevails regardless of the country of origin, and of whether the mother tongue of the migrants was an official language in Canada. The fertility of those for whom it was an official language is always lower on average than of those for whom it was not, but there does not seem to be a critical age at which the fertility of the former and the latter starts to diverge. Formal education has an effect: the fertility of immigrants who arrived in Canada at any age before adulthood and who were or became college graduates is similar to that of their native peers. An appendix to this paper is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00324728.2013.802007 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is characterized by a highly variable clinical course. Del(11q) and del(17p), routinely studied by conventional G-banding cytogenetics (CGC) and fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH), have been related to progression and shorter overall survival. Recently, array-based karyotyping has gained acceptance as a high-resolution new tool for detecting genomic imbalances. The aim of the present study was to compare genomic arrays with CGC and FISH to ascertain whether the current techniques could be substituted in routine procedures. We analyzed 70 patients with CLL using the Cytogenetics Whole-Genome 2.7M Array and CytoScan HD Array (Affymetrix), CGC and FISH with the classical CLL panel. Whereas 31.4% and 68.6% of patients presented abnormalities when studied by CGC and FISH, respectively, these rates increased when arrays were also analyzed (78.6% and 80%). Although abnormality detection is higher when arrays are applied, one case with del(11q) and three with del(17p) were missed by genomic arrays due to their limited sensitivity. We consider that the complete substitution of CGC and FISH by genomic arrays in routine laboratories could negatively affect the management of some patients harboring 11q or 17p deletions. In conclusion, genomic arrays are valid to detect known and novel genomic imbalances in CLL, but should be maintained as a complementary tool to the current techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bcl-2/IgH rearrangement is the molecular hallmark of follicular lymphoma (FL) which is present in 70-90% of the cases at diagnosis. The clinical significance of this feature is controversial. The aim of this study was to analyze the bcl-2/IgH rearrangement by means of a PCR technique, and to correlate molecular findings with clinical characteristics and outcome. Sixty-nine patients (median age, 53 years; male/female ratio: 35/34) diagnosed with FL in a single institution were included in the study. A total of 77 DNA samples were analyzed. 54 were obtained from lymph node biopsy and 23 from peripheral blood or bone marrow. Bcl-2/IgH rearrangement was assessed for both the major breakpoint region (MBR) and the minor cluster region (mcr) breakpoints by a PCR technique. Thirty-nine out of sixty patients (65%) with assessable samples were found to have a bcl-2/IgH rearrangement in the MBR breakpoint, whereas bcl-2/IgH rearrangement in mcr was observed in one patient (2%) and no rearrangement at MBR or mcr in the remaining 20 patients (33%). Regarding the initial characteristics, patients with bcl-2/IgH rearrangements at MBR or mcr were younger (<65 years) than those with no rearrangement at these sites (p = 0.0001). No differences were found according to bcl-2/IgH rearrangement in terms of complete response rate, time to treatment failure and overall survival. In our series bcl-2/IgH rearrangement at MBR or mcr, which was found in 67% of the patients, was not correlated with response to treatment, survival nor time-to-treatment-failure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A woman with scleroderma and classic polyarteritis nodosa (PAN) who developed idiopathic myelofibrosis (IM) is reported. The patient presented with a one-year history of weakness, polyarthritis, Raynaud phenomenon, dry cough, and epigastralgia. The diagnosis of scleroderma with visceral involvement was made and treatment with prednisone subsequently started, with good clinical response. Six years later, fever, weight loss, livedo reticularis, and dysesthesias developed. Electromyographic studies were consistent with sensory neuropathy and a sural nerve biopsy yielded the diagnosis of PAN. The patient received cyclophosphamide plus prednisone with a favorable response, but 11 years later she was admitted because of weakness, constitutional symptoms, and abdominal pain due to spleen infarcts. Marked anemia, with aniso-poikilocytosis, tear-drop cells, immature myeloid precursors in the peripheral blood, and an increased serum LDH, was observed and the diagnosis of IM established by bone marrow biopsy. This case represents a new association between IM and an autoimmune disease and supports the hypothesis of an immune basis of IM in some patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analysis of the T cell receptor (TR) repertoire of chronic lymphocytic leukemia-like monoclonal B cell lymphocytosis (CLL-like MBL) and early stage CLL is relevant for understanding the dynamic interaction of expanded B cell clones with bystander T cells. Here we profiled the T cell receptor β chain (TRB) repertoire of the CD4+ and CD8+ T cell fractions from 16 CLL-like MBL and 13 untreated, Binet stage A/Rai stage 0 CLL patients using subcloning analysis followed by Sanger sequencing. The T cell subpopulations of both MBL and early stage CLL harbored restricted TRB gene repertoire, with CD4+ T cell clonal expansions whose frequency followed the numerical increase of clonal B cells. Longitudinal analysis in MBL cases revealed clonal persistence, alluding to persistent antigen stimulation. In addition, the identification of shared clonotypes among different MBL/early stage CLL cases pointed towards selection of the T cell clones by common antigenic elements. T cell clonotypes previously described in viral infections and immune disorders were also detected. Altogether, our findings evidence that antigen-mediated TR restriction occurs early in clonal evolution leading to CLL and may further increase together with B cell clonal expansion, possibly suggesting that the T cell selecting antigens are tumor-related. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]