Ultraviolet irradiation for the prevention of graft-versus-host disease and graft rejection in bone marrow transplantation

This review describes an approach to the prevention of graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) and graft rejection following allogeneic BMT that differs from conventional methods. Ultraviolet (UV) irradiation inhibits the proliferative responses of lymphoid cells to mitogens and alloantigens by inactivation of T lymphocytes and dendritic cells, and in animal models this can prevent both GVHD and graft rejection. It is important that the marrow repopulating capacity of haemopoietic stem cells is not damaged by the irradiation process. We have found that polymorphic microsatellite markers are a sensitive way of assessing the impact of UV irradiation on chimerism after BMT in rodents.

Protocol: A randomised controlled trial evaluation of Cancer Focus NI’s ‘Dead Cool’ smoking prevention programme in post-primary schools

This paper presents a research protocol for a randomised controlled efficacy trial of the ‘Dead Cool’ smoking prevention programme. Dead Cool is a three to four-hour programme designed to be used by teachers with Year 9 students in Northern Ireland. The main outcome of the programme is to prevent students from starting to smoke. The protocol reports a research design intended to test the efficacy of the programme in 20 post-primary school settings. Selected schools included those from secondary /grammar/integrated/single sex/coeducational, rural and urban schools from both the maintained and controlled state sector and independent sector schools. Outcome measures include self-reported behaviours, monitoring of carbon monoxide (CO) in exhaled breath and focus groups designed to assess implementation fidelity and opinions on efficacy in intervention schools and explore the ‘counterfactual’ potential treatments in control schools.