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T Tate

Publications and source records attributed to T Tate.

12 recordsLinked to original sources

What do palliative medicine consultants do?

A workload study of consultants in palliative medicine was carried out, in which a task inventory questionnaire was sent to the consultant members of the Association for Palliative Medicine of Great Britain and Ireland. The median number of hours per week worked by a palliative medicine consultant was 49.5 (mean 51.3), excluding time on-call and breaks. The median consultant first on-call roat is 1:3. Palliative medicine consultants work a median of 22.5 direct clinical and 4.5 indirect clinical hours per week. This is very similar to the hours worked by consultants in other specialties who work an average 51.3 h per week, but with a median on-call rota of 1:6. Further studies are planned to monitor the patterns of consultant activity and workload in this specialty.

Consultants↗

Palliative medicine: its content and training.

The specialty of palliative medicine has developed rapidly in the last few years incorporating many aspects of care of the terminally ill. It provides a unique opportunity to work within a multidisciplinary team providing total care for a patient and his family. There is undoubtedly an increasing demand from the public for this kind of service. Palliative medicine is a challenging specialization in which a career structure is currently being developed.

Education, Medical↗

Conformation therapy to improve the irradiation of the spinal axis.

Techniques for the irradiation of the spine have remained largely unchanged since the introduction of megavoltage therapy. The main disadvantages of these techniques are the inhomogeneous dose distribution and the problems associated with field joins. The tracking method of conformation therapy employs a short field length and translates the patient through the beam on the couch of a computer controlled treatment unit. Dose uniformity along the spinal axis is achieved by controlling the speed at which the target travels through the radiation field. Treatment is given at standard source-axis distance (SAD) and the need for external shielding is eliminated by shaping the width of the field. The join with the cranial fields is independent of any skin marks, removing the risk of over- or under-dosage. Treatments are planned automatically from computed tomography (CT) information by an in-house planning system. The calculated doses have consistently shown good agreement with phantom measurements. Three cobalt dose distributions are presented and compared: a tracking treatment; a single posterior field, and two matched fields. The superiority of conformation therapy over the other commonly used treatment methods is clearly demonstrated.

Humans↗

Influence of ormetoprim on the bioavailability, distribution, and pharmacokinetics of sulfadimethoxine in rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss).

1. Half lives of distribution and elimination phases of 14C-sulfadimethoxine following i.v. dosing of sulfadimethoxine/ormetoprim (SDM/OMP, 42/8 mg/kg) were 0.4 and 16.1 hr respectively. The apparent volume of distribution was 503.9 ml/kg. 2. In vitro plasma protein binding of 14C-SDM was not altered by increasing concentrations of unlabeled OMP. Similarly, binding of 14C-OMP was not altered by SDM. 3. Peak plasma concentrations of 14C-SDM following oral administration of SDM/OMP were observed at 20 hr with an apparent bioavailability of 38%. 4. Oral dispositional studies revealed the highest concentrations of 14C-SDM in bile, intestine, liver and fat. 5. Parent SDM and N-acetylated SDM were detected in plasma from i.v. and orally dosed animals. 6. The pharmacokinetics and distribution of 14C-SDM were not influenced by OMP co-administration.

Administration, Oral↗

Immune donors can protect marrow-transplant recipients from severe cytomegalovirus infections.

To study the importance of transferred immunity against cytomegalovirus (CMV) in allogeneic, HLA-matched, T-cell-depleted bone-marrow transplantation, the incidence, severity, and outcome of CMV infections were studied in 40 CMV-seropositive recipients in relation to the donors' immunity against CMV. There was no significant difference in the incidence of CMV infections between recipients of seropositive (n = 27) and seronegative (n = 13) marrow. However, the incidence of CMV pneumonitis (8/13 compared with 4/27; p less than 0.001) and the mortality attributable to CMV infection (6/13 compared with 1/27, p less than 0.01) were significantly greater in the group with seronegative donors than in those with seropositive donors. Multivariate regression analysis showed that recipients of seronegative marrow had a fifteen-fold greater risk of CMV pneumonitis and a fifty-fold increase in risk of a fatal CMV infection than recipients of seropositive marrow. Thus, after T-cell depletion CMV-seropositive marrow protects seropositive recipients against severe CMV infections; whenever possible, therefore, such recipients should be given marrow from seropositive donors. Ultimately, active immunisation of CMV-seronegative donors might help to protect seropositive recipients of T-cell-depleted marrow transplants against severe CMV infections.

Adult↗

Conformation therapy: a method of improving the tumour treatment volume ratio.

Restriction of the volume irradiated is a fundamental tenet of radiotherapy. Conventional two-dimensional treatment results in geometrically shaped high-dose regions, the sizes of which are defined by the greatest dimensions of a tumour mass. Conformation therapy permits a tumour to be considered for treatment as multiple short segments, and the radiation field to be tailored to fit each segment accurately. This paper demonstrates that this results in a reduction of the treatment volume of between 10% and 80%, depending on the shape of the tumour. Also, it is shown that a greater proportion of the high-dose region is occupied by tumour, thus reducing the volume of normal tissue treated to a high dose. Smaller treatment volumes allow the prescription of tumoricidal doses and improve the tolerance of radiation by patients.

Aorta↗

Treatment of medulloblastoma using a computer-controlled tracking cobalt unit.

Radiation therapy of the length of the spinal column presents various clinical and physical problems. The completed plan may be complicated to set up, be time-consuming and require daily variation to achieve reasonable dose homogeneity. A case of medulloblastoma is used to illustrate the steps in producing a plan for dynamic treatment using a computer-controlled tracking cobalt unit. After definition by computed tomography, the target is considered in segments in order to develop a plan which keeps the spinal cord constantly positioned at the beam isocentre. The main computer is used to develop the patient treatment file and information is transferred to a second computer which controls and monitors the safe functioning of the cobalt unit. The cranial fields are treated separately in a conventional way. Good and consistent control of the dose distribution is achieved along the entire target volume. This technique is a marked improvement over all existing methods of treating the spinal axis.

Cerebellar Neoplasms↗

Beyond belief?

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Ceremonial Behavior↗

Web of deceit.

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Child↗