Phototherapy with ultraviolet radiation: a study of hormone parameters and psychological effects.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Patients report well-being as they are treated with phototherapy. We investigated hormone parameters and psychological well-being after phototherapy in a placebo-controlled study. METHODS: A total of 77 patients with dermatological conditions and 22 healthy volunteers were divided into four groups. The patients received phototherapy either on the whole body or only on hands and/or feet. The volunteers were given either whole-body phototherapy or placebo light. Serum or plasma samples were analysed for cortisol, calcium, magnesium, phosphate, TSH, T(4), T(3) and 25-hydroxyvitamin D, and urine samples for cortisol. Patients and volunteers answered a questionnaire before and 6 weeks after phototherapy/placebo light. Psychiatric ratings were performed according to the Comprehensive Psychopathological Self-rating Scale for Affective Syndromes, a self-report version of which has been transformed to correspond to the Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS). RESULTS: In the patients who received whole-body irradiation, we observed a significant improvement in both MADRS score and cognitive-symptom score after the completion of phototherapy. We also observed a significantly higher level of 25-hydroxyvitamin D after phototherapy, but no difference in the other hormone parameters. CONCLUSION: Whole-body phototherapy of patients with dermatological conditions results in improved well-being and significantly higher levels of 25-hydroxyvitamin D in serum.

Manhattan transfer: lethal radiation, bone marrow transplantation, and the birth of stem cell biology, ca. 1942-1961.

This study investigates how, in the late 1940s and 1950s, fears of nuclear accidents and nuclear warfare shaped postwar radiobiology. The new and intense forms of radiation generated by nuclear reactor technology, and which would be released in the event of a nuclear war, created concerns about a public-health hazard unprecedented in form and scale. Fears of inadvertent exposure to acute and potentially lethal radiation launched a search for anti-radiation therapies, out of which emerged the new technique of bone marrow transplantation (BMT). This study analyzes the use of BMT first as a research tool to explore the biological effects of ionizing radiation, and then as an adjunct to radiotherapy for the treatment of cancer. In highlighting how BMT became the province of different research and clinical constituencies, this study develops an understanding of the forces and contingencies that shaped its development. Exploring the emergence of BMT and the uses to which it was put, it reveals that BMT remained a technique in the making -- unstable and far from standardized, even as it became both a widely used research tool and rapidly made its way into the clinic. More broadly, it casts new light on one route through which the Manhattan Project influenced postwar radiobiology; it also affords new insights into one means by which radiobiology came to serve the interests of the Cold War state. In its focus on BMT this paper provides a new perspective on the evolving relationship between radiobiology and biomedicine in the postwar period.

Total skin electron beam radiotherapy for patients who have mycosis fungoides.

It has taken four decades of basic and clinical research to bring about a consensus process and published report that recognize a TSEB radiotherapy technique that is optimized from several perspectives (see references [2-4, 13]). Short and long-term clinical results with consensus TSEB radiotherapy technique are good. The therapeutic ratio of TSEB radiotherapy is well-defined and is clinically acceptable. Meanwhile, adjuvant PUVA and ECP may significantly improve results, but further data are needed to confirm these preliminary findings (see references [23, 34, 39, 40, 42]).

[Between heaven and hell - children's emotional perception of stemcell transplantation]. / Zwischen Himmel und Hölle - wie Kinder die Extremsituation der Stammzelltransplantation erleben.

The following paper is the manuscript of an oral presentation during the annual GPOH meeting on May 22nd, 2000 in Berlin. Following her experiences as a member of the psychosocial care team of a children's cancer unit the author discusses the emotional impact of stemcell or bone marrow transplantation in children. Psychosocial care is identified as a way to support children emotionally during a situation of existential crisis, and to help them share their inner feelings and experiences.