The lack of radiotherapy linear accelerators (LINACs) in Low-and Middle-Income countries (LMICs) has been recognised as a major barrier to providing quality cancer care in these regions, along with a shortfall in the number of highly qualified personnel. It is expected that additional challenges will be faced in operating precise, high tech radiotherapy equipment in these environments, and anecdotal evidence suggests that LINACs have greater downtime and higher failure rates of components than their counterparts in High-Income Countries. To guide future developments such as the design of a LINAC tailored for use in LMIC environments, it is important to take a data-driven approach to any re-engineering of the technology. However, no detailed statistical data on LINAC downtime and failure modes has been previously collected or presented in the literature.This work presents the first known comparative analysis of failure modes and downtime of current generation LINACs in radiotherapy centres in Oxford (UK), Abuja, Enugu, Lagos, Benin (Nigeria) and Gaborone (Botswana). By deconstructing the LINAC into 12 different subsystems, it is shown that the failure rate in an LMIC environment compared to the High Income Country (HIC) is more than twice as large in 7 of the 12 subsystems. The results of

No abstract

Objective Frequently, little attention is paid by clinicians on the psychiatric disorders that may be associated with cancers. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of major depressive disorders in outpatients with cancers at the Radiology Oncology Centre of the National Hospital, Abuja, Nigeria. It also sought to determine the socio‐demographic and clinical factors associated with the disorder. Method A sample of 177 randomly selected outpatients with cancers was interviewed with socio‐demographic questionnaire and the major depressive episode section of the Mini International NeuroPsychiatric Interview at the hospital. Results The mean age (SD) of the participants was 48.9 (13.8) years, with females accounting for 61.6% of them. The prevalence of current major depressive disorder, past depressive episode and recurrent depressive disorder were 25.1%, 24.3% and 7.5%, respectively. The current depressive disorder was found to be significantly associated with the presence of disturbing pain and the stage of the disease. Conclusion The occurrence of depressive disorders in patients with cancers at the hospital was high. Their assessment and treatment should be prioritized to ensure complete management of the patients with cancer conditions.

No abstract