Effectiveness of automated appointment reminders in psychosis community services: a randomised controlled trial.

We report on the first open-label, parallel group randomised controlled trial of automated appointment reminders in a psychosis community service in the UK. Ninety-five patients were randomly allocated to receiving/not receiving automated messaging reminders 7 days and 1 day before appointments. All 'Attended' and 'Missed' appointment outcomes over 6 months were analysed using cluster regression analysis. Reminded appointments were significantly more frequently attended than non-reminded appointments (unadjusted odds ratio (OR) = 3.54, 95% CI 1.36-9.22, P = 0.01; adjusted OR = 2.95, 95% CI 1.05-8.85, P < 0.05). Automated messaging reminders can provide a robust strategy for promoting engagement with psychosis services. Declaration of interest The authors have no competing financial interests to declare in relation to the current work. Sarah McAllister was supported by a King's Undergraduate Research Fellowship.

Targeted iron oxide nanoparticles for the enhancement of radiation therapy.

To increase the efficacy of radiation, iron oxide nanoparticles can be utilized for their ability to produce reactive oxygen species (ROS). Radiation therapy promotes leakage of electrons from the electron transport chain and leads to an increase in mitochondrial production of the superoxide anion which is converted to hydrogen peroxide by superoxide dismutase. Iron oxide nanoparticles can then catalyze the reaction from hydrogen peroxide to the highly reactive hydroxyl radical. Therefore, the overall aim of this project was to utilize iron oxide nanoparticles conjugated to a cell penetrating peptide, TAT, to escape lysosomal encapsulation after internalization by cancer cells and catalyze hydroxyl radical formation. It was determined that TAT functionalized iron oxide nanoparticles and uncoated iron oxide nanoparticles resulted in permeabilization of the lysosomal membranes. Additionally, mitochondrial integrity was compromised when A549 cells were treated with both TAT-functionalized nanoparticles and radiation. Pre-treatment with TAT-functionalized nanoparticles also significantly increased the ROS generation associated with radiation. A long term viability study showed that TAT-functionalized nanoparticles combined with radiation resulted in a synergistic combination treatment. This is likely due to the TAT-functionalized nanoparticles sensitizing the cells to subsequent radiation therapy, because the nanoparticles alone did not result in significant toxicities.