Simple, cheap test can help save lives from colorectal cancer
2021-01-19
(Press-News.org) New research has demonstrated that a simple, cheap test can help identify who is at risk of developing colorectal cancer, aiding early diagnosis and potentially saving lives.
Led by the University of Exeter, and supported by the Peninsula and the Somerset, Wiltshire, Avon, and Gloucestershire Cancer Alliances, and by the Cancer Research UK CanTest Collaborative, a new study published today in the British Journal of Cancer examined data from nearly 4,000 patients aged 50 and over. The study involved all healthcare providers in the South West of England taking a new approach. Over six months, they provided the faecal immunochemical test (FIT), which costs round £4 and can pick up traces of hidden blood in faeces. The test was given to anyone with low-risk symptoms of colorectal cancer - that is, symptoms can be caused by bowel cancer but are also very often caused by other things - such as stomach ache, unexplained weight loss, or anaemia. Prior to this, there was no easy to do test available for people with low risk symptoms of colorectal cancer.
From June to December 2018, 3,890 patients received the FIT. Of those, 618 tested positive for blood in their faeces, 43 of whom had received a diagnosis of colorectal cancer within 12 months. In the group that tested negative, only eight were diagnosed with colorectal cancer a year later.
Dr Sarah Bailey, of the University of Exeter Medical School, who led the study, said: "Our findings are very exciting - we show that this simple and inexpensive test performs exceptionally well in this group of patients with low-risk symptoms, to quickly and accurately tell us who is likely to not have colorectal cancer, and who should be referred for investigation. At a time when hospital services face a backlog as a result of COVID-19 measures, making this decision quickly can ensure the right people are investigated and treated as quickly as possible, which can help save lives. We know that FIT has accelerated interest in how FIT can be used in other patients, such as those with symptoms that have a higher risk of being colorectal cancer and we are now calling for FIT to be evaluated for use across the entire healthcare spectrum, not just in primary care, and in combination with other clinical markers of cancer such as blood test results"
Colorectal cancer has a high mortality rate - each year, 1.8 million cases are diagnosed worldwide, and the disease causes global 900,000 deaths annually. Requests for urgent colorectal cancer investigations have more than doubled from 2012. This is in part because of awareness among clinicians that seemingly low-risk symptoms can later present as an emergency, with the lowest cancer survival.
Dr Joe Mays, of the Peninsula Cancer Alliance, which brings together leaders from different hospital trusts to improve cancer diagnosis and care in their area,, said: "The rapid and robust analysis has generated the evidence for doctors to use the FIT test with confidence. This led to a reduction in the expected rates of colonoscopy, and helped us build a business case for the ongoing commissioning of this service. Building confidence and familiarity with the test helped us to manage a crisis in endoscopy capacity caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. We're now keen to evidence the performance of the test in higher risk populations."
Dr Jodie Moffat, Cancer Research UK's head of early diagnosis, said: "FIT is already being used for people who don't have symptoms in the bowel screening programme. So it's fascinating to see how this test may also be used in patients with low risk symptoms to identify who needs further investigation. As with all tests, FIT isn't perfect and some cases can be missed so it's important that anyone whose symptoms persist, change or worsen contact their GP, even if they've recently had a negative FIT result."
INFORMATION:
The study is entitled 'Diagnostic performance of 1 a faecal immunochemical test for patients with low-risk 2 symptoms of colorectal cancer in primary care: an evaluation in the South West of England' and is published in the British Journal of Cancer.
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2021-01-19
Successive governments' approach to obesity policies has destined them to fail, say researchers.
Government obesity policies in England over the past three decades have largely failed because of problems with implementation, lack of learning from past successes or failures, and a reliance on trying to persuade individuals to change their behaviour rather than tackling unhealthy environments. This is the conclusion of new research by a team at the University of Cambridge funded by the NIHR School for Public Health Research.
The researchers say their findings may help to explain why, after nearly thirty years of government obesity policies, obesity prevalence in England has not fallen and substantial inequalities persist. According to a report by NHS Digital in May 2020, ...
2021-01-19
Young Seychelles warblers fare better if their elderly parents have help raising them, according to new research from the University of East Anglia (UEA) and the University of Groningen.
Seychelles warblers, a cooperatively breeding species of songbird that lives in small family groups, share the care of young between parents and helpers. This collaboration can compensate for a decline in the ability of elderly parents to provide sufficient care, the researchers found. It may also promote more social behaviour in family groups with older parents.
The findings help explain why social species, such as humans, often do better if they live in groups and cooperate to raise offspring.
The ...
2021-01-19
Fried-food intake is linked to a heightened risk of major heart disease and stroke, finds a pooled analysis of the available research data, published online in the journal Heart.
And the risk rises with each additional 114 g weekly serving, the analysis indicates.
It's clear that the Western diet doesn't promote good cardiovascular health, but it's not clear exactly what contribution fried food might make to the risks of serious heart disease and stroke, say the researchers.
To shed some light on this, they trawled research databases, looking for relevant studies published up to April 2020, and found 19.
They pooled the data from 17, involving 562,445 participants ...
2021-01-19
We should err on the side of caution and stop the global roll out of 5G (fifth generation) telecoms networks until we are certain this technology is completely safe, urges an expert in an opinion piece published online in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health.
There are no health concerns about 5G and COVID-19, despite what conspiracy theorists have suggested.
But the transmitter density required for 5G means that more people will be exposed to radio frequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMFs), and at levels that emerging evidence suggests, are potentially harmful to health, argues Professor John William Frank, Usher Institute, University of Edinburgh.
The ...
2021-01-19
Below please find summaries of new articles that will be published in the next issue of Annals of Internal Medicine. The summaries are not intended to substitute for the full articles as a source of information. This information is under strict embargo and by taking it into possession, media representatives are committing to the terms of the embargo not only on their own behalf, but also on behalf of the organization they represent.
1. Primary care physicians account for a minority of spending on low-value care
Abstract: https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-6257
URL goes live ...
2021-01-19
BEER-SHEVA, Israel...January 18, 2021 - A green Mediterranean (MED) diet reduces intrahepatic fat more than other healthy diets and cuts non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) in half, according to a long-term clinical intervention trial led by Ben-Gurion University of the Negev researchers and a team of international colleagues.
The findings were published in Gut, a leading international journal focused on gastroenterology and hepatology.
"Our research team and other groups over the past 20 years have proven through rigorous randomized long-term trials that the Mediterranean diet is the healthiest," says lead researcher Prof. Iris Shai, an epidemiologist in the BGU ...
2021-01-18
More people could be protected from life-threatening rabies thanks to an agile approach to dog vaccination using smart phone technology to spot areas of low vaccination coverage in real time.
Vets used a smart phone app to help them halve the time it takes to complete dog vaccination programmes in the Malawian city of Blantyre.
The custom-made app lets them quickly spot areas with low inoculation rates in real time, allowing them to jab more dogs more quickly, and with fewer staff.
Rabies is a potentially fatal disease passed on to humans primarily through dog bites. It is responsible for some 60,000 deaths worldwide each year, 40 per cent of which are children. It places a huge financial burden on some of the world's poorest countries.
Researchers predict that more than one million ...
2021-01-18
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Click beetles can propel themselves more than 20 body lengths into the air, and they do so without using their legs. While the jump's motion has been studied in depth, the physical mechanisms that enable the beetles' signature clicking maneuver have not. A new study examines the forces behind this super-fast energy release and provides guidelines for studying extreme motion, energy storage and energy release in other small animals like trap-jaw ants and mantis shrimps.
The multidisciplinary study, led by University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign mechanical science and ...
2021-01-18
Scientists in Australia have developed a method for the rapid synthesis of safe vaccines, an approach that can be used to test vaccine strategies against novel pandemic pathogens such as SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
Led by Professor Richard Payne at the University of Sydney and Professor Warwick Britton at the Centenary Institute, the team has demonstrated application of the method with a new vaccine for use against tuberculosis (TB), which has generated a powerful protective immune response in mice.
Researchers are keen to develop the vaccine strategy further to assist in the rapid pre-clinical testing of new vaccines, particularly for respiratory illnesses.
"Tuberculosis infects 10 million and kills more than 1.4 million people every year," ...
2021-01-18
Cell velocity, or how fast a cell moves, is known to depend on how sticky the surface is beneath it, but the precise mechanisms of this relationship have remained elusive for decades. Now, researchers from the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in the Helmholtz Association (MDC) and Ludwig Maximilians Universität München (LMU) have figured out the precise mechanics and developed a mathematical model capturing the forces involved in cell movement. The findings, reported in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), provide new insight for developmental biology and potential cancer treatment.
Cell ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] Simple, cheap test can help save lives from colorectal cancer
