Search PubMed⌕ Search

Biomedical subjects

M Thomas

Publications and source records attributed to M Thomas.

1,195 records · Page 67Linked to original sources
PubMedDate not supplied

Incorporation of emergency medicine in the undergraduate curriculum.

BACKGROUND: Emergency medicine has been recognized as a specialty in western countries. However, in India, most hospitals and medical colleges have no provision for teaching this specialty. This study was done to assess the feasibility of incorporating emergency medicine in the undergraduate medical curriculum. METHODS: Sixty final year undergraduate students underwent a special training programme in emergency medicine. A feedback was obtained from the students. RESULTS: While the practical experience was rated above satisfactory by 65% of them, 98.2% of them appreciated the lecture sessions. Overall, the programme was rated as more than good by 92.7%. CONCLUSION: As a specialty that emphasizes basic clinical skills, emergency medicine should be incorporated in the undergraduate medical curriculum.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Development and characterization of a cytokine-secreting pancreatic adenocarcinoma vaccine from primary tumors for use in clinical trials.

Preclinical studies with murine tumor models have demonstrated that tumor cell vaccines engineered to secrete certain cytokines in a paracrine fashion elicit systemic immune responses capable of eliminating small amounts of established tumor. In particular, tumors that express the cytokine GM-CSF produce potent systemic antitumor immune responses against poorly immunogenic murine tumors. These results have encouraged the development of paracrine-cytokine secreting tumor vaccines for gene therapy of human cancer. GM-CSF recruits professional antigen-presenting cells, which in turn activate effector T cells. These findings suggest that allogeneic as well as autologous tumor cells can be used as the tumor source for developing cancer vaccines. A major obstacle to creating genetically modified human allogeneic tumor vaccines is the absence of stable cell lines required for efficient gene transfer, because most human tumors isolated from primary surgical specimens fail to proliferate in long-term culture. We have developed a method for the routine generation of in vitro cell lines from primary tumors of the pancreas. This method overcomes the common problem of stromal and fibroblast overgrowth that can inhibit the in vitro expansion of many histologic types of tumors. In addition, we have analyzed 12 of these cell lines for cytokeritin and mutated K-ras expression to demonstrate that they derive from the original epithelial tumor tissue. The lines can be genetically modified to stably express the cytokine GM-CSF. These methods should be helpful to investigators attempting to establish cell lines from other histologic tumor types for the development of allogeneic genetically modified tumor vaccines.

Adenocarcinoma↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Susceptibility to leprosy and serum atypical pseudocholinesterase.

The pseudocholinesterase levels and the nature of the enzyme as shown by the dibucaine number (D.N.) were estimated in 720 controls and 420 lepromatous leprosy patients, and 301 tuberculoid leprosy patients. There was no statistical difference in the esterase levels between leprosy patients and normal controls. But the distribution of D.N. was significantly different in the leprosy patients compared to the normal population studied. The D.N. below 40 indicates the samples with the atypical pseudocholinesterase--the presence of which is genetically determined. The distribution of samples with D.N. below 40 was significantly higher in the lepromatous leprosy patients compared to the normal population or tuberculoid leprosy patients. It is proposed that since there is a greater incidence of the atypical enzyme in lepromatous leprosy cases, the presence of this enzyme or the deficiency of the typical enzyme may make a person more susceptible to leprosy.

Adolescent↗