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Scientists find new strain of HIV
Gorillas have been found, for the first time, to be a source of HIV. Previous research had shown the HIV-1 strain, the main source of human infections, with 33m cases worldwide, originated from a virus in chimpanzees. But researchers have now discovered an HIV infection in a Cameroonian woman which is clearly linked to a gorilla strain, Nature Medicine reports. A researcher told the BBC that, though it was a new type of HIV, current drugs might still help combat its effects.
HIV originated from a similar virus in chimpanzees called Simian Immunodeficiency Virus (SIV). Although HIV / Aids were first recognised by scientists in the 1980s, it is thought to have first entered the human population early in the 20th Century in the region of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The virus probably originally jumped into humans after people came into contact with infected bush meat. SIV viruses have been reported in other primates, including gorillas.
Unusual case
French doctors treating the 62-year-old Cameroonian woman who was living in Paris said they initially spotted some discrepancies in routine viral load tests. Further analysis of the HIV strain she was infected with showed it was more closely related to SIV from gorillas than HIV from humans. She is the only person known to be infected with the new strain, but the researchers expect to find other cases. Before moving to Paris, she had lived in a semi-urban area of Cameroon and had no contact with gorillas or bush meat, suggesting she caught the virus from someone else who was carrying the gorilla strain.
Analysis of the virus in the laboratory has confirmed that it can replicate in human cells. Co-author Dr David Robertson, from the University of Manchester, said it was the first definitive transfer of HIV seen from a source other than a chimpanzee, and highlighted the need to monitor for the emergence of new strains. "This demonstrates that HIV evolution is an ongoing process. The virus can jump from species to species, from primate to primate and that includes us; pathogens have been with us for millions of years and routinely switch host species."
“The fact the patient had been diagnosed in France showed how human mobility can rapidly transfer a virus from one area of the world to another,” he said.
New problems 'unlikely'
Speaking to the BBC's World Today programme, Dr Robertson said there was no reason to believe that existing drugs would not work on the new virus. "If some day we do manage to develop a vaccine, there's no reason to believe it wouldn't work," he said. "There's no reason to believe this virus will present any new problems, as it were, that we don't already face."
Professor Paul Sharp, from the University of Edinburgh, said the virus probably initially transferred from chimpanzees to gorillas. He said the latest finding was interesting but perhaps not surprising. "The medical implication is that, because this virus is not very closely related to the other three HIV-1 groups, it is not detected by conventional tests. So the virus could be cryptically spreading in the population.”
"However, he said that he would guess it would not spread widely and become a major problem. Although the patient with this virus was not ill, there is no reason to believe that it will not lead to Aids," he added.
Copyright BBC Health News – Monday, 3rd August 2009
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8175379.stm
Experts urge wider folic acid use
Women of childbearing age have been urged to take folic acid supplements, even if they are not planning a family. The Scottish Spina Bifida Association said 15 babies had been born in Scotland with the condition since January - double the normal number. It said folic acid supplements, which research suggests can prevent many cases, were often taken too late. Its advice targets all sexually active women of childbearing age because of the numbers of unplanned pregnancies. Children born with spina bifida are often paralysed from the waist down and can suffer lifelong spinal cord, bowel and bladder problems. Some children also have brain damage.
Four weeks
Research suggests up to 75% of cases could be prevented by the mother taking folic acid three months before conception, and during pregnancy. Five-year-old Ella Chambers was diagnosed with spina bifida at birth. She cannot walk and has hydrocephalus, or water on the brain. Her mother Melanie said: "I took folic acid tablets as soon as I found out I was pregnant but I've since discovered you need to take it at least three months prior to becoming pregnant. "I'll never know, if I had taken it earlier, whether I'd be in a different situation now."
Dr Margo Whiteford, consultant geneticist and chair of the Scottish Spina Bifida Association, said: "This year we've had as many contacts from families in the first half of the year as we'd expect to see for the full year. We don't know if this is down to folic acid but we do know that most women don't take enough folic acid at the right time. Ladies do know about folic acid preventing spina bifida but they wait until they've missed a period before they start taking it. The spinal cord develops within the first four weeks of pregnancy so by that stage it's too late - if the baby's going to have spina bifida it will already have developed it."
Under review
It's not known whether the same trend has been seen in other parts of the country, as the latest figures for England, Wales and Northern Ireland date back to 2007. Scotland has the highest rate of children born with spina bifida in the UK because Scottish mothers are less likely to abort the foetus once the condition is diagnosed. Half of affected pregnancies are terminated in Scotland, compared with 90% in the rest of the UK.
In 2007 the Food Standards Agency (FSA) recommended that folic acid should be added to bread or flour. However that recommendation is under review following new research which suggested it could increase the risk of colorectal cancer. The FSA said that anyone who is not about to become pregnant could get enough folic acid from a balanced diet. However, the FSA adds that pregnant women should take 0.4mg (400 micrograms) of folic acid until the 12th week of pregnancy.
Copyright BBC Health News – Wednesday 2 September 2009
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/8232089.stm
Boy conceived using new test born
The first baby conceived with the help of a new egg screening technique which could offer hope to women for whom IVF has repeatedly failed has been born. Oliver was born to a 41-year-old woman who had had 13 failed IVF treatments. The new screening method, developed in Nottingham, allows a rapid analysis of the genetic material in fertilised eggs to check for chromosomal abnormalities.
The British Fertility Society said the technique was promising but that more research was needed. Professor Simon Fishel, who led the team, said Oliver's arrival showed that the test could help couples who have repeatedly failed to become pregnant. "All the team have been waiting for this very special baby to be born. Oliver's birth is an important landmark in shaping our understanding of why many women fail to become pregnant.”
Up to half of the eggs in younger women and up to 75% in women over 39 are chromosomally abnormal. "Array Comparative Genomic Hybridisation is used to screen eggs or embryos in an IVF cycle, evaluate all the chromosomes and select the most chromosomally normal embryos." Before an egg is fertilised, it ejects half of its own set of chromosomes to leave space for the chromosomes coming from the father's sperm.
Miscarriages
These "spare" chromosomes are kept in a structure on the edge of the cell known as the "polar body". Array CGH involves extracting the polar body and looking to see if there are too few or too many chromosomes. It is believed that two out of three women fail at each IVF attempt because of chromosomal abnormalities in the implanted egg. The team at Care Fertility Clinic have found a way of speeding the analysis of the genetic material they extract.
Two years ago US scientists announced that 18 women had given birth after having their eggs screened using a similar technique. But in those cases the resulting embryos had to be frozen and re-implanted later. The Nottingham team can get the results back in 24 hours which means that the mother can undergo IVF in the same cycle of treatment. Oliver's parents had 13 previous failed IVF cycles and three miscarriages. Eight eggs were tested and only two found to be chromosomally normal. One of those produced Oliver.
Great hope
British Fertility Society chairman Tony Rutherford said the technology offered much promise but the widespread use of it should await the outcome of further rigorous research. He said there was no compelling evidence yet that pre-implantation genetic screening (PGS) tests in which embryos are looked at for genetic abnormalities before they are implanted in the womb, improved the pregnancy rate or live birth rate. He said: "All too often we see groundbreaking news about techniques that seem to offer great hope, but fail to live up to expectations when applied in widespread clinical practice."
Professor Peter Braude, head of the department of women's health at King's College London, said he was delighted that the mother had achieved her positive outcome after so many years of trying but he too sounded a note of caution. "At the moment this can only be viewed as a potentially very lucky result," he said.
Stuart Lavery, a consultant gynaecologist and director of IVF at Hammersmith Hospital in London, said: "This technique is a very powerful tool, that may allow us to detect which embryos of the many produced in an IVF cycle have the best chance of implantation and resulting in a birth.
Clearly these are very early days and our optimism needs to be tempered with caution until we have more evidence of the technique's safety and effectiveness. My own unit at the Hammersmith has recently been given an HFEA licence for microarray CGH and we look forward to contributing to this promising new field."
Copyright BBC Health News – Wednesday 2nd September 2009
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8232146.stm
'Bubble' children treatment hope
Children seriously ill because their immune systems have genetic flaws could have their lives saved by a safer form of bone marrow transplant, doctors say. The London team says the treatment for so-called "bubble" children - who have to live in sterile conditions - almost eliminates the need for chemotherapy. The Great Ormond Street doctors used antibodies to clear patient bone marrow and make room for donor stem cells. They report in The Lancet the method cuts both rejection and side-effects.
High doses
Chemotherapy has both short- and long-term consequences, ranging from hair loss to damage to organs such as the liver and lungs. But it has been used as standard to kill the patient's own bone marrow and make room for stem cells. This treatment has saved the lives of many children with serious genetic defects in their immune systems - primary immunodeficiencies or PID - that render even the most minor infections life-threatening.
Fifty such transplants are carried out each year. But some children are deemed too sick to withstand the high doses of drugs needed to wipe out the bone marrow. Gentler chemotherapy has been developed, but is still too much for certain groups of patients, such as babies.
Sickest children
The new technique, developed by doctors from GreatOrmondStreetHospital (GOSH) and the UCL Institute of Child Health, uses an antibody that targets a molecule specific to blood and bone cells - meaning other tissues are left undamaged. The team, led by Dr Persis Amrolia, reported that 13 of the 16 patients treated in the study had survived and been cured of their underlying disease. They recovered twice as quickly as those given standard treatment, although there were still some complications.
"Because this approach was experimental, we only used it on the sickest children, who we felt could not tolerate standard transplant chemotherapy. Given how sick these children were before transplant, the results are remarkable," said Dr Amrolia. "What's really encouraging is that pretty much all the children who survived now have a really good quality of life. There's still a lot to do and the challenge now is to develop similar targeted approaches for children with other genetic diseases and leukaemia."
Chris Hughan, chief executive of The Primary Immunodeficiency Association, said: "We welcome this important study as it heralds a potential breakthrough in the treatment of paediatric PID patients who need a bone marrow transplant (BMT) but have significant chronic infection or organ damage at the time. The new treatment provides a viable alternative conditioning treatment for children unable to tolerate intensive transplant chemotherapy. We look forward to supporting this new BMT programme at GOSH and making our members aware of this exciting new treatment development."
Source BBC Health News – Tuesday 1 September 2009
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8231818.stm
UK teenage girls 'worst drunks'
Young teenagers in the UK are more likely to get drunk than anywhere else in the industrial world, shows an international survey. Girls in particular have pushed up this level of drunkenness in the UK, says a report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Among 15-year-olds, girls are more likely to have been drunk than boys. But the report also says young people in the UK are materially well-off and enjoy a "high quality of school life". The report, Doing Better for Children, compares the well-being of young people living in the leading industrial economies.
Growing up
This wide-ranging international study shows young people in the UK enjoying generous support as they grow up - with above-average state funding, a high quality of school life, below-average child poverty and low levels of bullying. But in their personal lives, the UK youngsters are characterised by alcohol abuse and high rates of teenage pregnancy.
Drunkenness in the UK is the highest among 24 OECD countries, measured in terms of the proportion of 13 and 15-year-olds having been drunk at least twice.
The UK's figure for these under-age drunks - 33% - is more than double the rate for countries such as the United States, France and Italy.
Among girls the gap between the UK and other countries is even wider.
One in five 13-year-olds in the UK report having been drunk twice - four times higher than countries such as the United States, Sweden and the Netherlands. Among 15-year-old girls in the UK, 50% reported getting drunk, almost three times higher than their counterparts in France. The rate for boys in the UK in this age group getting drunk is 44%.
Risk-taking
"The difference in the UK is the high level of risk taking," says report co-author, Dominic Richardson. As well as young people getting drunk more often there are also unusually high rates of teenage pregnancy, he says.
This is despite a background of increased spending on young people - and relatively strong educational performance. It shows that tackling child poverty is not a magic bullet. Children who are from well-off homes can still have problems," he says.
In terms of abusing alcohol, he says the difference might be the context in which young people first experiment with drink. In France or Italy, youngsters might try drinks in a family environment - where they are less likely to get drunk. In the UK, they might be drinking with other teenagers. "It's down to sensible teaching," he says.
The figures on teenage drinking used by the OECD were gathered in 2005-06. More recent figures from the NHS, published in July, suggest that more 11 to 15-year-olds are not drinking any alcohol - but those who do drink are consuming more. While the OECD highlights the problems with drinking and teenage pregnancy, it also presents a positive picture of the support available to people growing up in the UK. It says that relative to other countries, children here are "materially fairly well-off" and that "average family income is higher and child poverty is lower than OECD averages".
It says that children in the UK also enjoy a high quality of school life and enjoy school much more than many of their international counterparts.
Also bullying is less frequent and teenage suicides are less common in the UK than in most other industrialised countries.
Copyright BBC Health News – Tuesday 1st September 2009
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8227443.stm
'They have given me my life back'
When Gareth Roberts has a sugary drink and a couple of chocolate bars his blood sugar levels soar. But within hours they are back to normal. For Gareth, aged 32 from Blackpool, this is a huge change. At the age of just 10 weeks he was diagnosed with neonatal diabetes and until recently he had to carefully watch what he ate and needed to inject himself with insulin four times a day.
Wonder drug
Then doctors diagnosed him with a gene mutation and he was weaned off insulin and on to tablets that are specially suited for his type of diabetes.
He is delighted with the results. "After the test result came back positive I was able to come off insulin and go on to tablets," he said. "Even after eating all the wrong kind of food my blood sugar levels went back to normal without needing any insulin. I can eat anything now, but my doctor did warn me to take care and to remember I still had diabetes."
Gareth said diabetes had dominated his life. "Because I was diagnosed so young I didn't know anything different," he said. "But it was terrible on insulin - swinging between too low and too high blood sugars. I tried to keep a balance, but my blood sugars were always up and down." Then, two years ago doctors tried him on the tablets.
Mutated gene
About one in 100,000 babies are born with neonatal diabetes each year. The condition is diagnosed in the first six months of life. The standard treatment - regular injections of insulin - helps to control their blood sugar levels to a degree, but cannot prevent fluctuations. The breakthrough came from a team of scientists at the PeninsulaMedicalSchool in Exeter.
Using DNA testing, they showed that about half of the children with this condition had a mutation in a key gene which prevented them from releasing insulin in response to a rise in blood sugar levels.
They also found a potential answer: a group of drugs called sulphonylureas, which are already used to treat people with type 2, or adult onset, diabetes. Sulphonylureas help people with neonatal diabetes to release insulin from their own pancreas.
Meeting families
Two researchers - Professor Andrew Hattersley, from Peninsula and Professor Frances Ashcroft, of the University of Oxford - who played a leading role in the discovery recently held a meeting of parents, patients, doctors and scientists. Professor Ashcroft said it had been exciting for the scientists to see the effect the drug had on patients. "It was a wonderful day. As a scientist working on a human disease, you hope that your work will help patients one day," she said. "But you never expect that it will have an impact in your own lifetime, and you certainly never expect to meet people whose lives have been helped by it. To have some one say 'You have transformed my life' is extraordinary".
Professor Hattersley said the new treatment really had transformed patients' lives. "As soon as the problem was discovered, patients can be given the drugs," he said. "This has had a fantastic effect because their blood sugar levels are very much more stable. Gareth was struggling with diabetes and trying to balance things with insulin - his life has now changed dramatically. The key message we have been getting out to doctors and patients is that anyone diagnosed with diabetes under six months should have genetic testing. This treatment does not work in patients who do not have the genetic change."
'My life back'
Gareth said the Exeter and Oxford teams have given him back his life. He initially got a letter from his local hospital in Blackpool, inviting him to give a blood sample. "They said it was a complete shot in the dark and might not affect me, but that if it did it would transform my life. And it has. Within six weeks of taking these tablets I had stopped taking insulin.”
“Now I have no insulin at all, which is such a relief. At the time I was having four injections a day and you have to keep on taking the blood sugars, but since I have been on the tablets it has been great. I take one in the morning and one at night but I am not tied to when I take them. Every time I take a blood test now it is normal."
Copyright BBC Health News – Monday, 31st August 2009
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8176275.stm
'My stroke didn't stop me diving'
Larry Cotton loves diving. Being able to propel his self through the water gives him great joy, particularly as in his daily life Larry is partially paralysed following a stroke three years ago and needs a wheelchair to get around. Larry, aged 78, first started diving at 52, but after his stroke no-one would insure him and he resigned himself to retiring from the sport.
Chance to dive
"It was then impossible to dive with anybody, because you need a medical certificate to say that you are fit," he said. "I found it impossible to get one. I went down to the doctors and he said I was wasting my time and that nobody would ever sign me off." But, on a holiday in Tenerife, Larry heard of the Scuba Trust, who were able to get him back in the water.
Gill Cullwick, of the Scuba Trust, said it had been set up in 1996 by a number of diving enthusiasts to give people with physical disabilities an opportunity to experience the pleasure and excitement of scuba diving. Over the years they have taken people diving who have arthritis, spina bifida, stroke, multiple sclerosis and cerebral palsy, as well as people who have been disabled in accidents.
Feeling freedom
Gill, who is herself disabled, said diving gives people like her a chance to experience more movement. "The freedom that a disabled person has underwater is an amazing feeling and it is something that you cannot get on land." Larry agreed: "Diving now isn't quite like it was before. First I couldn't move round much on my own, but after practise I could propel myself along, which was a great feeling."
Initially, Larry spent his time in a swimming pool so that instructors could spend some time with him and make him comfortable and at ease in the water, despite his weakness on one side. After several sessions in the pool, he signed up to go diving in Egypt's Red Sea. "It was marvellous," he said. "I can't really swim like I used to and two of the instructors have to come into the water with me. But I have been to the Red Sea twice now, which is fantastic. The colour in the Red Sea is something you can't describe. I did not think I would ever dive again. "I would recommend diving if you like being in the water, it's the closest thing we can get to flying."
Diving benefits
Dr John King, medical director of the London and Midlands Diving Chambers, said, where possible, people with disability should be encouraged to keep active. "Some illnesses, including stroke, are life changing and enforce a change of direction in habits, hobbies and recreational pursuits," he said. "A lot of people may find that they will have to stop diving, paragliding, etc, simply because the logistics of keeping on with them are insurmountable. "The fact that something or some part does not work as we would like does not mean we can or should let all the other working parts fall into disuse.”
"If that means that a recreation needs some modification - do it, if it means that some alternative should be found - look for it. Do not sit supine in God's Waiting Room."
Copyright BBC Health News – Saturday, 29th August 2009
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8118995.stm
GPs 'struggle with child obesity'
Front-line NHS staff are unlikely to have an impact on tackling childhood obesity, say UK researchers. GPs and practice nurses told a University of Bristol team there were limits on what they could do to solve what is effectively a social problem. Time pressures, a lack of treatment options, and parental reluctance to address weight problems prevented them having any effect, said staff. The government said no one group could solve obesity on its own.
In the UK, around 27% of children are now overweight. Writing in the British Journal of General Practice, the researchers said there had been moves to involve primary care staff in spotting and treating overweight children. This includes 2006 guidelines from both the Department of Health and the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence. But in a series of in-depth interviews with GPs, practice nurses, school nurses and health visitors, the researchers found this view was not shared by those on the front line.
GPs and practice nurses said they rarely saw primary school-age children in the surgery and when they did there were often more pressing problems to deal with than their weight. If they did bring up a child's weight, a lack of treatment options or follow-up services, meant there was little they could do to help, said doctors and nurses taking part in the study.
Priority
One school nurse said: "I've got a child that's going into care...I've got another child that's coming to me because he's hearing voices and they're telling him to do bad things. If you've got those sorts of things, you have to prioritise those... childhood obesity comes way down the list." Doctors also said they felt it inappropriate to mention a child's weight unless their health problem was related to it. Participants also said the causes of obesity - poor diet and lack of physical exercise - were outside their control. Even those who thought primary care should be involved questioned how effective any intervention would be.
Study leader Dr Katrina Turner said the 30 staff members who took part in the study had not seen any of the guidelines and they were unlikely to have a "meaningful impact. It would appear that primary care can only play a limited role. We're talking about an obesity epidemic - the people who go to the GP are the tip of the iceberg. We need to look at the availability of healthy food, safe places to play, how often children have physical exercise in the curriculum."
A Department of Heath spokesman said childhood obesity is one of the biggest health challenges we face. "There is no one group that can solve it on its own and we do not expect primary care professionals will treat and support all overweight and obese children. We are committed to supporting GPs and other healthcare professionals so they are equipped to raise the issue of weight with their patients, to provide advice and, where necessary, to refer people on to suitable services that will meet their needs."
Professor Alan Maryon-Davis, president of the UK Faculty of Public Health, said: "The problem is there simply aren't enough 'suitable services' to cope. Family-based approaches can be effective. But we need many more specially trained healthy eating and physical activity advisors if we're at all serious about helping the large numbers of very overweight children."
Copyright BBC Health News – Tuesday, 1 September 2009
Sudden infant deaths 'tumbling'
The number of unexplained infant deaths - or cot deaths - has been falling, provisional figures from the Office of National Statistics suggest. There were 264 such deaths in 2007 across England and Wales, down 7% on the year before - which itself saw a significant fall in numbers. The rate was highest among babies born outside marriage where only the mother registered the birth.
What causes the deaths is unclear, but there are measures to reduce the risk. These include putting a baby on its back to sleep, not smoking in the vicinity of the baby and not sharing a bed if the parent is very tired or has been drinking. The majority of deaths were among babies of a normal birth weight - 2,500 grams or 5.5lbs and above and occurred between 28 days and one year of age.
At a rate of 1.42 per 1,000 live births, the rate among unmarried mothers registering the birth alone was eight times that of babies born within marriage. For births inside and outside marriage - and where the baby was registered by both parents - the death rate among parents in the routine and manual occupations was twice that among those classified as managerial or professional.
Age was also a factor: rates were highest in mothers under 20, and fell the older she became. There were also regional variations: the North East had the highest rate, at 0.66 per 1,000 births, and the East of England the lowest, at 0.32 per 1,000. The figures include deaths described both as sudden infant deaths and those for which the cause is "unascertained" after a full investigation. ONS researchers said the terms were used interchangeably by coroners.
Back to sleep
There is now suggestion that bacteria may have a role in sudden infant death, although the precise nature of any such relationship is unclear. This has not changed the advice issued to new parents, and recently updated by the Department of Health.
"This decrease is great news and hopefully shows that we are successfully reaching parents on how to reduce the risk of cot death," said Joyce Epstein, chief executive of The Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths. "Nevertheless, these figures show that single mums, those under 20, are four times more likely to have a cot death than mothers over 24."
The charity is launching a new social networking site aimed at young parents next month, offering support and advice on safe sleep.
Copyright BBC Health News – Tuesday 26th August 2009
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8222147.stm
Ovarian cancer 'is being missed'
Women with ovarian cancer may not be diagnosed as early as they could be because their symptoms are not being recognised, a study suggests. Writing in the BMJ, Bristol researchers said the cancer was not a "silent killer" as it is frequently dubbed, but was associated with specific symptoms. They looked at the case notes of more than 200 women with a cancer diagnosis. Ovarian cancer is one of the less common cancers but survival rates are relatively low.
Separate research has however shown that cases of the cancer are falling: data from Cancer Research UK indicates numbers are down 20% from a decade ago. The drop is being attributed in large part to use of the contraceptive pill, which is thought to have a protective effect. But when it does develop, it is frequently diagnosed in the later stages when the disease has progressed and treatment is harder.
Separate research has however shown that cases of the cancer are falling: data from Cancer Research UK indicates numbers are down 20% from a decade ago. The drop is being attributed in large part to use of the contraceptive pill, which is thought to have a protective effect. But when it does develop, it is frequently diagnosed in the later stages when the disease has progressed and treatment is harder.
It has been described as silent because it was historically thought to have few symptoms. However in recent years a number of symptoms have been noted and it is now recommended that abnormal vaginal bleeding and "palpable masses" be urgently investigated. But the team from the University of Bristol said investigation was not mandatory and that there were in fact seven symptoms associated with this form of cancer.
Most of the symptoms had a relatively low "predictive value" of less than 1%, meaning fewer than one in 100 patients with the complaint actually go on to receive a cancer diagnosis. But abdominal distension - being permanently bloated - was more frequently associated with a diagnosis and was a symptom present even in the earlier stages of disease.
Most of the symptoms had a relatively low "predictive value" of less than 1%, meaning fewer than one in 100 patients with the complaint actually go on to receive a cancer diagnosis. But abdominal distension - being permanently bloated - was more frequently associated with a diagnosis and was a symptom present even in the earlier stages of disease.
However, bloating it is not currently on the list of symptoms warranting further investigation. "If it were, some women could have their diagnosis speeded up by many months," wrote the team, led by Dr William Hamilton. "Symptoms are common and often reported, even in early - and potentially curable - cancers. In that respect our results are encouraging - there is some chance of identifying early ovarian cancer by using symptoms. Ovarian cancer is not silent, rather its sound is going unheard."
In some cases in the study - which involved 212 women from across 39 general practices in Devon - women had visited their GPs with symptoms six months prior to diagnosis, but most symptoms were reported in the three months before.
Confused picture
Research released earlier this year found widespread confusion among both doctors and women, both about the symptoms of the disease and when they became apparent. Around 6,800 women are diagnosed with the cancer each year and only 30% are alive five years after diagnosis.
The charity Target Ovarian Cancer says the survival rate has not improved in 30 years. "The UK's high rates of late diagnosis have played an important part in keeping five year survival rates low, at just 30% - amongst the lowest in the Western World," said charity chief executive Annwen Jones. "In the last 12 months there has been progress with the Department of Health and charities agreeing key messages on symptoms of ovarian cancer for both health professionals and the public, but knowledge of these messages is woefully low. Change is long over-due and ovarian cancer needs to become a priority."
COPYRIGHT of BBC Health News Wednesday 26th August 2009
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8221059.st
In some cases in the study - which involved 212 women from across 39 general practices in Devon - women had visited their GPs with symptoms six months prior to diagnosis, but most symptoms were reported in the three months before.
Confused picture
Research released earlier this year found widespread confusion among both doctors and women, both about the symptoms of the disease and when they became apparent. Around 6,800 women are diagnosed with the cancer each year and only 30% are alive five years after diagnosis.
The charity Target Ovarian Cancer says the survival rate has not improved in 30 years. "The UK's high rates of late diagnosis have played an important part in keeping five year survival rates low, at just 30% - amongst the lowest in the Western World," said charity chief executive Annwen Jones. "In the last 12 months there has been progress with the Department of Health and charities agreeing key messages on symptoms of ovarian cancer for both health professionals and the public, but knowledge of these messages is woefully low. Change is long over-due and ovarian cancer needs to become a priority."
COPYRIGHT of BBC Health News Wednesday 26th August 2009
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8221059.st
