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Anaesthesia is important for both surgery and intensive care and intravenous anaesthetics are widely used to provide rapid onset, stable maintenance, and rapid recovery compared with inhaled anaesthetics. The aim of the project on which this thesis is based was to investigate a reliable and safe methodology for delivering total intravenous anaesthesia using closed-loop control technology and bispectral analysis of human electroencephalogram (EEG) waveform. In comparison with Target Controlled Infusion (TCI), drug effect is measured during drug infusion in closed loop anaesthesia (CLAN). This may provide superior safety, better patient care, and better quality of anaesthesia whilst relieving the clinician of the need to make recurrent and minor alterations to drug administration. However, the development of a CLAN system has been hindered by the Jack of a 'gold standard' for anaesthetic states and difficulties with patient variability in pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic modelling, and a new and generic mathematical model of a closed-loop anaesthesia system was developed for this investigation. By using this CLAN model, investigations on pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic variability existing in patients were carried out. A new control strategy that combines a Proportional, Integral, Derivative (PID) controller, bispectral analysis of EEG waveform and pharmacokinetic/ pharmacodynamic models was investigated. Based on the mathematical model, a prototype CLAN system, the first CLAN system capable of delivering both hypnotics and analgesics simultaneously for total intravenous anaesthesia, was developed. A Bispectral Index (BIS), derived from power spectral and bispectral analysis on EEG waveform, is used to measure depth of anaesthesia. A supervision system with built-in digital signal processing techniques was developed to compensate the non-linear characteristics inherent in the system while providing a comprehensive protection mechanism for patient safety. The CLAN system was tested in 78125 virtual patients modelled using published data. Investigations on intravenous anaesthesia induction and maintenance with the CLAN system were carried out in various clinical settings on 21 healthy volunteers and 15 patients undergoing surgery. Anaesthesia targets were achieved quickly and well maintained in all volunteers/patients except for 2 patients with clinically satisfactory anaesthesia quality.

Relevant literature has been reviewed regarding the performance, implementation and evaluation of computer based medical decision support systems. The diagnostic performance of five simple case driven acute chest pain advice systems, have been compared using a standardized set of clinical records. A Bayesian inference model demonstrated superiority over two derived by logistic regression. Small data set flow charts performed well but both relied upon the use of expert opinion. A Bayesian acute abdominal pain diagnostic advice system has been evaluated in a clinical trial. Standardized data collection improved the diagnostic performance of doctors. In practice, the computer system offered little additional user benefit. From further tests in primary care, it was concluded that, whereas general practitioners might enhance their performance by using data collection sheets, paramedics might benefit through direct use of the computer. DERMIS is a new dermatology primary care diagnostic advice system. Components include a database derived from 5203 prospectively collected clinical records, a user interface, and an enhanced Bayesian inference model incorporating combined frequency estimates, expert beliefs and rationalized end-point groups. On laboratory testing, the diagnostic accuracy of DERMIS was 83%. The correct diagnosis appeared in the top three, of a possible 42 disease list on 97% of occasions. In a semi-field trial of DERMIS involving 49 general practitioners, doctors did not always collect the same information as a dermatologist but were able to significantly increase their chance of making a correct diagnosis through use of the computer system. It has been concluded that although implementation of DERMIS might well increase general practitioner diagnostic accuracy and lead to improvements in the management of skin disease in primary care, rates of referral for specialist opinion might not be affected unless standard management plans are adopted.

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The medical electron linear accelerator has been in general use for radiotherapy since the early nineteen-sixties, but in recent years a number of manufacturers have increased the maximum electron energy above the 8 MeV threshold for neutron production. The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) formed Sub Committee 62 C to institute safety recommendations for high energy machines, and in September 1975, the principle of a maximum neutron contamination level, was established. The level chosen was an arbitrary, interim value and it was recognised by the Committee that this value would change when more information became available. The lack of immediate information was due to the extreme difficulty in measuring pulsed neutrons of a wide range of energies in a very high gamma ray and RF environment. This thesis is a record of all aspects of neutron production of one particular make of machine, the MEL SL75-20, in order to satisfy the IEC requirement for information. The results show that the maximum interim value of neutron contamination was optimistically low, and unless measures were taken to reduce the neutron production, it was unlikely that any machine, irrespective of manufacturer, using standard target, primary collimator and flattening filter materials, could comply with the recommendations. The results also show that if a treatment room labyrinth was designed on traditional principles considering only high energy treatment beam gamma scattering, the facility would fail to meet the Sealed Sources regulations for an adequately shielded compound at typical treatment beam intensities, in view of the additional radiation from neutron streaming and subsequent neutron absorption effects. It is shown that both the patient dose and the hazard to staff, arising from neutron production, can be substantially reduced at very little cost. The ability to produce neutrons in a hospital environment could be most useful, and it is shown that using the experimental beam facilty as a neutron source, the linear accelerator could be used for diagnostic investigations on body tissues and fluids.