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Biomedical subjects

B M Southcott

Publications and source records attributed to B M Southcott.

8 recordsLinked to original sources

Treatment of small cell lung cancer by eight weeks chemotherapy.

Eighty-two patients with small cell lung cancer (SCLC), 32 with limited disease, were treated with alternating chemotherapy. Eight courses were administered at weekly intervals, and responding patients received radiotherapy to sites of bulk disease. Overall response rate was 76.8%. Overall median survival was 265 days, 408 days in patients with limited disease. The median symptom free period after chemotherapy was completed was 123 days. These results are comparable with those in reports of chemotherapy of longer duration and warrant the further investigation of short duration treatment in this disease.

Adult

Cisplatin, vincristine, methotrexate and bleomycin (POMB) as initial or palliative chemotherapy for carcinoma of the cervix.

Chemotherapy was given as initial therapy to 12 women with very advanced squamous cell carcinoma of the cervix and to 19 women with recurrent disease. They received a median of four courses of POMB which comprised vincristine 1.0 mg/m2 and methotrexate 300 mg/m2 followed by folinic acid rescue, bleomycin 30 mg as a 48-h infusion or intramuscular injection and cisplatin 100 mg/m2 as a 12-h infusion. Two of the 14 assessable patients with recurrent disease (14%) had a complete response with no disease found histologically in one, and seven (50%) had a partial response. Although the actuarial median survival of all 19 patients with recurrent disease was 8 months, five patients have remained free from tumour progression for a median of 17 months from start of chemotherapy. Six of the 10 assessable patients receiving initial chemotherapy (60%) had a complete response (confirmed histologically in two) and two (20%) had a partial response. Nine patients had additional treatment with radiotherapy and or surgery. Although only four of the patients remain disease-free at 61, 51, 7 and 4 months, all but two were initially FIGO stage IV. Although cisplatin-induced emesis is controllable and the side-effects of methotrexate can be avoided, the POMB regimen remains potentially toxic. The small number of patients with very advanced disease who are long-term survivors prompts us to study further the role of aggressive chemotherapy as the initial treatment of patients with visceral or nodal involvement from carcinoma of the cervix.

Adult

Histological features of skin reactions to human lymphoid cell line lymphokine in patients with advanced cancer.

Lymphokines (LCL-LK) prepared from the human lymphoid cell line RPMI 1788 were injected intradermally into tumour-bearing patients. Biopsies of skin reactions were obtained for histological study from 30 min. to 72 hr, and for comparison, biopsies were taken at similar times of tuberculin reactions in tuberculin-positive patients. The early response to LCL-LK consisted of polymorph adherence to vascular endothelium (at 30 min.) followed by polymorph exudation, oedema and haemorrhage (1-2 hr); mononuclear and eosinophilic leucocyte emigration began at 4 hr; and by 12 hr, when the reaction was maximal clinically, there was widespread pleomorphic leucocytic infiltration of the dermis. At later times (48-72 hr) skin reactions to LCL-LK showed predominantly mononuclear cell infiltration and hypertrophy of vascular endothelium. Electron microscopy at 48 hr revealed perivascular lymphocytes and macrophages. The skin reaction to LCL-LK appeared to superimpose an early component of marked polymorph infiltration, oedema and haemorrhage upon a mononuclear cell exudation similar to that seen in the tuberculin reaction. It was concluded that the later phase of the skin reaction to lymphoid cell line lymphokine in the human bore a close histological similarity to the established tuberculin reaction. The LCL-LK reaction occurred in patients anergic to recall antigens. Its intensity was mainly related to dose and did not vary substantially between different batches of lymphokines.

Dose-Response Relationship, Immunologic

Changes induced by local injection of human lymphoid cell lymphokine into dermal metastases of breast carcinoma: a light and electron microscopical study.

Lymphokines (LCL-LK) prepared from the human lymphoid cell line RPMI 1788 were injected into dermal nodular metastases of three patients with advanced breast carcinoma anergic to recall antigen (tuberculin). Three different injection schedules were employed. Ten such nodules were examined by excision biopsy and their histological appearances were compared with biopsies of four further nodules not injected with the lymphokine. Intranodular injection of LCL-LK resulted in clinical regression of tumour and histological evidence of tumour-cell necrosis with pleomorphic leucocytic infiltration by polymorphs, macrophages and lymphocytes. Electron microscopy of two such nodules failed to show close cell contact between leucocytes and tumour cells prior to tumour-cell necrosis. This study extends evidence that injection of inflammatory lymphokines into accessible tumour can result in local tumour regression and it suggests that such tumour-cell destruction may be the result of a variety of factors operating during local inflammatory response.

Breast Neoplasms

Thermocouple thermometry in microwave fields.

The causes of some of the artefacts and hazards resulting from the use of thermocouples in a 434 MHz microwave field have been investigated. The factors influencing their magnitudes are discussed.

Humans