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The paper describes a platform developed for the secure management and analysis of medical data and images in a grid environment. Designed for telemedicine and built upon the EGEE gLite middleware and particularly the metadata catalogue AMGA as well as the GridSphere web portal, the platform provides to healthcare professionals the capacity to upload and query medical information stored over distributed servers. A job submission environment is also available for data analysis. Security features include authentication and authorization by grid certificates, anonymization of medical data and image encryption. The platform is currently deployed on several sites in Europe and Asia and is being customized for applications in the field of telemedicine and medical physics.

Introduction: Treatment of conjunctival epithelial tumors is not standardized because it is difficult to compare large series in this rare disease. Surgical excision is usual, but the recurrence rate has led several authors to propose alternative therapies., Patients and Methods: During the past 20 years, brachytherapy using ophthalmic applicators has been developed and the results of different studies have confirmed the usefulness of this therapy. We report a retrospective study of 13 patients presenting with a conjunctival epithelial tumor treated with ruthenium106 applicators and followed up in our department since 1987., Results and Conclusion: There was no recurrence during a mean follow-up of 48 months. Complications depended on the size of the area treated and the dose of radiation.

Interstitial irradiation is a technique currently used in the treatment of bladder cancer. We report the data on 205 patients (177 men and 28 women) treated in eight French centers. The patients had received the following treatment: a short course of pre-operative pelvic irradiation, followed by surgery consisting of partial cystectomy or tumor resection, and implantation of plastic tubes filled with inactive lead wires, which were replaced by iridium 192 wires. The tumor characteristics were: transitional cell carcinoma, 88.8%; mean size of the tumor, 29 mm; pathological stages: pTis, 1; pT1, 98; pT2, 66; pT3a, 26; pT3b, 9; pT4, 1; unknown, 4 respectively; surgical lymph node status: N+, 3; N-, 118; no node dissection, 84. The mean follow-up was 51 months. Intravesical failures were seen in 35 patients (17.0%), 25 (71.4%) of them without metastases or regional recurrences. Twenty-one patients (10.2%) presented distant metastases, 2/3 of them suffered no bladder relapse. The 5-year survival, calculated according to the Kaplan-Meier method (all causes of death taken together) was 77.4% for the T1, 62.9% for the T2, and 46.8% for the T3. Fifty-three patients had immediate side-effects and three died from surgical complications. Twenty-nine patients had delayed bladder side-effects (haematuria, fistula, chronic cystitis). Six patients presented an ureteral stenosis. Of the disease-free survivors, 96.1% retained the bladder function. Three factors were significantly predictive of delayed side-effects: partial cystectomy, pre-operative radiotherapy total dose, and linear activity of the wires (p < 0.01). Comparing our results to different authors' series interstitial irradiation is likely to provide a high local and general control of the disease and good quality of life in patients with selected tumors.