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Biomedical subjects

N Pearce

Publications and source records attributed to N Pearce.

248 records · Page 14Linked to original sources
PubMed1982

Computer predictions of New Zealand doctor numbers.

Considerable debate has been generated about "the coming crisis in medical manpower" with most current analyses predicting a large surplus of doctors in the late 1980s. However, predictions can be complex because of potential fluctuations in the input variables due to political and social factors. Variables affecting active doctor numbers include the numbers of medical students graduating each year, immigration, emigration, the proportions of males and females, age at retirement, and extent of part-time work. A computer simulation is described which enables the relative effects of these variables to be compared. It is found that adjustments in the medical school intake have a relatively small short-term effect compared with the effects of adjustments in several of the other variables, particularly immigration numbers.

Computers↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Monoclonal antibodies for intravesical radioimmunotherapy of human bladder cancer.

Local administration of radioimmunoconjugates may allow successful tumor therapy. Bladder cancer appears well suited to this approach, because of its superficial and multifocal nature, and because it will allow direct intravesical administration of conjugates. Implantation of human bladder cancer cell lines in the bladder wall of nude rats results in tumor formation, providing an excellent model to test this. We have developed two murine monoclonal antibodies (MAbs), BLCA-8, IgG3, and BLCA-38, IgG1, both of which react with malignant cells and shed into voided urine of patients with transitional cell carcinoma (TCC) of the bladder, but not with normal bladder urothelial cells. Radioimmunoconjugates produced with 131Iodine (131I) or 125I have been used for biodistribution studies following administration directly into the bladder. Radioiodinated intact MAbs or Fabs administered intravesically into nontumor-bearing rats did not leak into the systemic circulation and were stable in urine for up to 100 h. Biodistribution studies carried out following intraperitoneal or intravesical administration of radioimmunoconjugates to tumor-bearing nude rats indicate good tumor uptake of both MAbs. Together with immunoreactivity assays, these studies demonstrate that 131I-labeled MAbs have considerable potential for intravesical radioimmunotherapy of human bladder tumors, and further studies are under way.

Administration, Intravesical↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Congenital defects and miscarriages among New Zealand 2, 4, 5-T sprayers.

A survey was conducted of professional New Zealand 2, 4, 5-T sprayers and a comparison group of agricultural contractors with a total of 989 respondents. The numbers of births, congenital defects, and miscarriages were identified from 1969 to 1980 by a postal questionnaire. Each pregnancy outcome was classified according to whether or not the father sprayed 2,4,5-T during the year of the pregnancy outcome, or the previous year. The relative risk estimates of 1.19 for congenital defects, and 0.89 for miscarriages, were not statistically significant. These results are reassuring as far as male professional 2,4,5-T sprayers are concerned. In addition, the extent of exposure of their wives from helping with spray activities, and from washing contaminated clothes, has not had a detectable reproductive effect.

2,4,5-Trichlorophenoxyacetic Acid↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Latency analysis in occupational epidemiology.

Allowance for prolonged disease induction and latency times is an important consideration in occupational epidemiology studies of cancer and other delayed effects of exposure. Two useful approaches for assessing prolonged induction and latency periods are (1) exposure lagging and (2) considering exposures only within moving time windows. The exposure weighting scheme proposed by Jahr2 to assess exposure burdens is another method that accounts for induction and latency, although not explicitly. These three approaches, which are shown to be special cases of exposure weighting, are illustrated with an analysis of lung cancer mortality among a cohort of workers from an asbestos textile plant.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Is enhanced fetal growth a risk factor for the development of atopy or asthma?

BACKGROUND: The aetiological factors underlying the worldwide increase in the prevalence of asthma and the international patterns of the prevalence of asthma are not well understood. This has led to consideration of factors such as fetomaternal health which may programme the initial susceptibility to allergic sensitisation, or contribute to the development of asthma independently of sensitisation. METHODS: A number of epidemiological studies have examined the relationship between birth anthropometric measures (as a marker of fetomaternal health) and the subsequent development of asthma and atopy in childhood or adult life. RESULTS: Some, but not all of these studies have reported a relationship between enhanced fetal growth and an increased risk of asthma and/or atopy. CONCLUSION: These findings raise the hypothesis that factors responsible for fetal growth may also lead to programming of the developing respiratory or immune systems, predisposing to the subsequent development of asthma and/or atopy. This hypothesis may explain, in part, the increasing prevalence of asthma and atopy over recent decades, which has occurred concurrently with secular trends for improved fetomaternal health, as measured by anthropometric measurements at birth.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Withdrawal of fenoterol and the end of the New Zealand asthma mortality epidemic.

In response to the evidence that fenoterol was a major cause for the second epidemic of asthma deaths in New Zealand, the Department of Health severely restricted its availability, thereby allowing an 'experiment in prevention' to be undertaken. These regulatory actions, which effectively removed fenoterol from the market in New Zealand, were associated with a sudden and marked reduction in asthma mortality, providing further evidence for a causative role of fenoterol in the epidemic of asthma deaths in New Zealand.

Administration, Inhalation↗
PubMedDate not supplied

[Traditional epidemiology, modern epidemiology and public health].

There have been significant developments in epidemiologic methodology during the past century, including changes in basic concepts, methods of data analysis, and methods of exposure measurement. However, the rise of modern epidemiology has been a mixed blessing, and the new paradigm has major shortcomings, both in public health and scientific terms. The changes in the paradigm have not been neutral but have rather helped change- and have reflected changes in-the way in which epidemiologists think about health and disease. The key issue has been the shift in the level of analysis from the population to the individual. Epidemiology has largely ceased to function as part of a multidisciplinary approach to understanding the causation of disease in populations and has become a set of generic methods for measuring associations of exposure and disease in individuals. This reductionist approach focuses on the individual, blames the victim, and produces interventions that can be harmful. We seem to be using more and more advanced technology to study more and more trivial issues, while the major causes of disease are ignored. Epidemiology must reintegrate itself into public health and must rediscover the population perspective.

Disease↗