Lung cancer is likely to overtake breast cancer as the main cause of cancer death among European women by the middle of this decade, according to new research published. In the UK and Poland it has already overtaken breast cancer as the main cause of cancer deaths in women.

The study by researchers in Italy and Switzerland predicts that just over 1.3 million people will die from cancer (737,747 men and 576,489 women) in the 27 countries of the European Union in 2013. Although the actual numbers have increased when compared with 2009 (the year for which there are World Health Organisation mortality data for most EU countries), the rate (age-standardised per 100,000 population) of people who die from the disease has declined. Since 2009 there has been 6% fall among men and 4% fall among women.

However, despite the decline in cancer deaths overall, lung cancer death rates continue to rise among women in all countries, while breast cancer rates fall. In 2013 there will be an estimated 88,886 deaths (14.6 per 100,000 women) from breast cancer and 82,640 deaths (14 per 100,000 women) from lung cancer. Lung cancer deaths have risen by 7% among women since 2009.

One of the study

Global action is needed to tackle the catastrophic threat of anti-microbial resistance, which in 20 years could see any one of us dying following minor surgery, England

Fragility fractures due to osteoporosis are a major cause of disability or premature death in older adults. Those at highest risk are patients who have already suffered one fragility fracture; they are at twice the risk of suffering a future fracture compared to others who have not fractured.
Nevertheless health care systems around the world are failing to identify and treat these patients, leaving them exposed to debilitating and life-threatening secondary fractures.
Based on evidence from numerous global studies, a new report, ‘Capture the Fracture: A Best Practice Framework and Global Campaign to Break the Fragility Fracture Cycle’ (1), sets 13 achievable standards for best practice in implementing fracture liaison services (FLS) worldwide, in a broad range of health-economic environments.
The report has been published in the peer-reviewed journal ‘Osteoporosis International’ and is endorsed by the International Osteoporosis Foundation (IOF) Committee of Scientific Advisors. It is available at link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00198-013-2348-z
Fracture Liaison Systems help reduce the burden of fragility fractures:
Professor Cyrus Cooper, Chair of the IOF Committee of Scientific Advisors (CSA) emphasized the importance of systematic and coordinated secondary prevention care: ‘Coordinator-based FLS have been shown to close the gap in secondary fracture prevention care, ensuring that fragility fracture sufferers receive appropriate assessment and intervention to reduce future fracture risk.’
The best practice framework sets the foundation for ‘Capture the Fracture’, a multi-stakeholder initiative led by the International Osteoporosis Foundation. The initiative hopes to drive change so that secondary fracture prevention becomes a reality around the world.
The new initiative aims to:
　

Older people often worry about dementia and while some risks are known, for example alcoholism or stroke, the effects of illness are less clear. New research looks at illness requiring hospitalisation and treatment in the intensive care unit (ICU) and finds that infection or severe sepsis, neurological dysfunction, such as delirium, or acute dialysis are all independently associated with an increased risk of a subsequent diagnosis of dementia.
This study was based on a random 5% of older (66 years or above) Medicare patients who were treated in intensive care in 2005 and whose health was followed for a further three years using Medicare claims data. Of the 25,368 patients included in the study 4,519 (17.8%) went on to receive a diagnosis of dementia during the three year follow up period.
Patients with previous indications of cognitive impairment for whom dementia could have been an escalation of a pre-existing condition were excluded from the study.
Increasing age was very strongly associated with diagnosis of dementia following ICU. The risk at 75 was more than double that of the 66 to 69 year olds. And this rose to more than five times the risk for those age 85 and older. Women had a marginally higher risk than men and, as other studies have shown, race was also important to risk. Length of stay in ICU was not a factor nor was the need for mechanical ventilation.
Three factors related to the critical illness were independently associated with an increased risk of a diagnosis of dementia: a critical illness with the presence of an infection which increased to a higher risk with more severe infection such as severe sepsis, having acute neurologic dysfunction during critical illness, including anoxic brain damage, encephalopathy, and transient mental disorders, and finally acute renal failure requiring dialysis. This last risk was time-dependent and only increased the risk 6 months after the patient had been discharged from hospital.
Dr Hannah Wunsch, from Columbia University Medical Center, lead author of the study commented, ‘Due to increasing life spans and better hospital care, millions of older people now survive a critical illness every year. Our study provides a greater understanding of the consequences of these hospitalisations on subsequent risk of receiving a diagnosis of dementia, and may allow for better planning and targeting future studies to high risk populations.’ EurekAlert

Researchers at Papworth Hospital, the University of Cambridge and the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute have discovered why a new type of dangerous bacterial infection has become more common among people with Cystic Fibrosis around the world. Through their ground-breaking research, the team has developed new measures to protect Cystic Fibrosis patients.
People with Cystic Fibrosis are prone to serious infection in part because they have sticky mucus that can clog up their lungs. In recent years doctors have seen a global increase in the number of infections caused by the antibiotic-resistant bacterial species Mycobacterium abscessus (M. abscessus). M. abscessus is distantly related to the bacterium that causes Tuberculosis and is usually found in water and soil. Until now, experts had thought it could not be passed from person to person.
‘There has been worldwide concern about the rising number of M. abscessus infections in people with Cystic Fibrosis and anxiety that spread from person to person might be responsible,’ said Dr Andres Floto, Research Director of the Cystic Fibrosis Unit at Papworth Hospital, Principal Investigator at the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research, University of Cambridge ‘Our work has allowed us to lead the world in changing hospital infection control: we used state-of-the-art DNA sequencing technology to understand how the infection is being spread, which conventional techniques would have missed.’
‘Our results will help to protect patients from this serious infection.’
The team used the latest methods to sequence the genomes of almost 170 isolates of M. abscessus from Cystic Fibrosis patients collected over a five-year period. By looking at the fine detail of the relationships between the bacterial genomes, to produce a ‘family tree’, the research team could determine where it was likely that infection had passed from one patient to another. They showed that, even with nationally recommended infection control measures in place, M. abscessus can spread between patients.
‘We are increasingly able to use DNA studies to improve patient care,’ says Professor Julian Parkhill, Head of Pathogen Genomics at the Wellcome trust Sanger Institute. ‘By sequencing the complete genomes of bacteria we can accurately describe where they have emerged from and how they pass from person to person.’
‘This knowledge means that the clinical teams can develop new health measures to safeguard their patients. Our aim is to develop the best methods to detect and control infection.’ Papworth Hospital