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Biomedical subjects

J Bury

Publications and source records attributed to J Bury.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

Pentoxyfylline in and prevention and treatment of chronic lung disease.

The anti-inflammatory effects of pentoxfylline are associated with a number of clinical benefits. These include reduction in mortality in patients who have undergone bone marrow transplants or suffer peritonitis. In infants with sepsis, a reduction in mortality has also been associated with pentoxyfylline administration. The anti-inflammatory effects of pentoxyfylline, as well as its bronchodilator, diuretic and respiratory muscle stimulant effects suggest it may have a useful role in BPD. Interim analysis of a prophylactic trial suggests pentoxyfylline may reduce treatment requirements after the neonatal period and that, in established BPD, pentoxyfylline and dexamethasone may be of similar efficacy.

Chronic Disease↗

Public health training in Europe. Development of European masters degrees in public health.

BACKGROUND: Changing political and economic relations in Europe mean that there are new challenges for public health and public health training. There have been several attempts to develop training at the master's level in public health which is focused on meeting the new needs. These have failed due to being too inflexible to allow participation by schools of public health. METHODS: A project funded by the European Union involving public health trainers has developed a new approach which allows participating schools to retain their national differences and work within local rules and traditions, but which aims to introduce the European dimension into public health training. This paper reports the conclusions of this project. CONCLUSIONS: A network of schools wishing to develop European Master's degrees is being established and other schools offering good quality programmes will be able to join.

Accreditation↗

Publets: clinical judgement on the web.

The Internet is now a major channel for publishing medical research data and documents, including clinical practice guidelines. It is now possible to capture guidelines in a computer interpretable form opening up the capability of using the internet (and intra/extranets etc.) to deliver patient-specific advice and other services. A development lifecycle and technology for publishing and delivering services at the point of care ("publets") are described. As with all new technologies, however, these new methods entail risks as well as opportunities. The paper closes with a discussion of quality requirements and an argument that publets should include a safety case as an integral part of their content.

Internet↗

Adjuvant intraportal chemotherapy for Dukes B2 and C colorectal cancer also receiving systemic treatment: results of a multicenter randomized trial. Groupe Régional d'Etude du Cancer Colo-Rectal (Belgium).

In a randomized trial, the authors evaluated the possible adjuvant activity of intraportal chemotherapy (with 5-fluorouracil 500 mg/m2/day in continuous infusion for 7 days and mitomycin C 10 mg/m2 at day 7) administered after surgery to half of the patients who underwent a full resection for Dukes B2 or C colorectal cancer. The procedure appeared manageable and safe. Two hundred and sixty patients were initially randomized, among whom 173 were finally considered as fully evaluable after having completed six courses of systemic chemotherapy. The reasons for withdrawal were basically tumoral ones and patients or doctors compliance. After a median follow-up of 4.5 years, no difference could be observed in the patients evolution assessed as relapses or deaths rate, or as relapse-free (at 5 years: 68% in the portal treatment group versus 70% in the control group) or overall survival (at 5 years: 76 versus 74%). The frequency of hepatic metastases (21 versus 18%) was also similar in both groups.

Adult↗

A quality and safety framework for point-of-care clinical guidelines.

The electronic dissemination of medical knowledge in the form of executable clinical guidelines and decision support systems must be accompanied by comprehensive methods for ensuring the quality of their knowledge content and their safety in use. This paper outlines a set of quality and safety requirements, and reviews three current guideline technologies, the Arden Syntax, GLIF and PROforma, against these requirements. The approaches used in these technologies have different strengths, and we propose a general framework for ensuring quality and safety that combines them. This framework brings together the normal documentation standards of medical publishing, rigorous design methods from software engineering, and active safety management techniques from artificial intelligence.

Artificial Intelligence↗

A matter of methods: perspectives on the role of the British general practitioner in the care of people with HIV/AIDS.

This paper is a critique of, and a comment on, the debate about the role of British general practitioners (GPs) in HIV care. We argue that (1) this debate is conducted around arguments which leave significant aspects of GPs' contribution undocumented and unnoticed, and that (2) research has contributed to this omission. The paper reviews the history of the debate about GPs' involvement in HIV care and argues that social research using structured survey methods has reinforced the continuing negative image of GP care. The paper draws on an ethnographic research project in Lothian (Scotland) which found that many people with HIV strongly valued their ongoing personal relationship with their GP. People with HIV also valued the hospital-based outreach system which provided reliable and high quality care, but sometimes experienced the associated interprofessional information sharing and discussion as invasive and controlling. Their GP relationship was valued because it was outside this hospital-based system of care. The paper concludes by suggesting that future developments in GP care should build on this positive aspect of the GP-patient relationship.

Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome↗

Long term follow-up of patients with acute myelogenous leukemia who received the daunorubicin, vincristine, and cytosine arabinoside regimen.

BACKGROUND: In 1985, the authors published a study of acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) patients treated with a chemotherapeutic regimen that was then considered intensive. Ten years later, the authors reanalyzed the same cohort to determine whether the very promising actuarial results observed at 5 years held after longer follow-up. METHODS: Between 1977 and 1982, 61 patients with AML were treated with a protocol consisting of daunorubicin, vincristine, and cytosine arabinoside induction followed by consolidation and maintenance for a total of 2 years. The complete remission (CR) rate was 66%, 84% in males versus 47% in females (P < 0.005). At the time of the first analysis in 1984, the overall survival (OS) was 17%, the projected 5-year continuous CR rate (CCR) 32%, and the disease free survival (DFS) rate 29%, with the best results observed for males and for patients ages 40-60 years (P < 0.05). RESULTS: When the data were reanalyzed 11 years later in 1995, the results were 14% OS, 23% CCR, and 16% DFS at 5 years. However, these figures dropped to 8%, 18%, and 11% at 10 years and to 8%, 12%, and 7% at 15 years, respectively. Among the 40 CR patients, 31 relapsed (up to 13 years after CR), and all died within 1.6 years after relapse. Nine patients were in CCR: 4 died of unrelated causes (suicide, alcoholic cirrhosis, acute peritonitis, or bladder carcinoma), 1 was lost to follow-up after 11 years, 2 were alive and well at 17 years at last follow-up, and 2 were transplanted in first CR and were doing well at 13 and 14 years at last follow-up. The survival advantage for males over females persisted (P = 0.0197), but the advantage for patients age 40-60 years did not hold. CONCLUSIONS: These long term data indicate that actuarial analysis at 5 years may overestimate the cure rate of AML patients because a number of late relapses do occur. However, the picture is blurred by the incidence of death not related to leukemia or its treatment; and when these patients were censored at the time of death, 17% of CR patients were still projected to be alive and free of leukemia after 17 years.

Adolescent↗

The chief scientist reports ... co-ordination of care on discharge from hospital into the community for patients with HIV/AIDS in Lothian.

OBJECTIVE: To document service use by people living with HIV/AIDS discharged from hospital, to identify gaps and overlaps in service provision after discharge, and to evaluate liaison between hospital-based and community-based services. DESIGN: Four week follow-up diary and interview study of service users, and interview/questionnaire study of service providers. SETTING: Services used by people discharged from the wards of two units of two Lothian hospitals. SUBJECTS: All patients with HIV infection admitted to the wards of two units of two Lothian hospitals from October 1992 to February 1993, and their service providers. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: General practitioners were the most contacted service post discharge, but general practitioners did not appear to play a co-ordination role in service provision. Liaison on discharge was found to be effective in terms of continuity of care in most cases; and from a service user perspective, liaison between hospital and primary care agencies did not appear a major concern. The majority of hospital discharges were organised in a setting with a large number of services, with complex communication patterns and informal procedures of discharge arrangements. This created uncertainty among service providers as to the arrangements which had been made, and fear and anxiety that they fall through. On the other hand, the informality of discharge procedures also ensured flexibility and responsiveness to unexpected events and changes in service users' circumstances and was a vital factor in continuity of care experienced by them. A more important issue for service users was the poor integration of services concerned with social/material support in the system of medical and emotional care.

Adult↗