Category Archives: Medical research

HPV vaccine after removal of precancerous cells may cut cervical cancer risk

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Study finds reduced risk of cervical cancer recurring after HPV vaccination post-surgery, though further research is needed

Giving women the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine when precancerous lesions are removed from their cervix may cut the risk of cells recurring and them getting cervical cancer, a study has found.

Cases of cervical cancer in the UK have fallen hugely since school pupils aged 13 and 14 – first girls and later boys – began being offered HPV jabs in 2008 as protection against the disease.

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Cancer researchers unable to access clinical trial data for top-selling drugs, study finds

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Lack of transparency from pharmaceutical companies on anticancer medication has implications for health equity, Australian scientist says

Clinical trial data that saw some of the world’s most widely used cancer drugs approved by the US drugs regulator remains secret, despite a pharmaceutical industry commitment to transparency made in 2014.

The authors of a study published in the journal JAMA Oncology on Friday said the lack of transparency should be concerning to Australia.

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Thai researchers test wastewater to track spread of monkeypox

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Monitoring sewage thought to be a quicker, more cost-effective way to understand the spread of the virus

Researchers in Thailand are examining wastewater for signs of monkeypox, as part of surveillance efforts to detect the spread of the virus.

Academics from Naresuan University, in Phitsanulok province, northern Thailand, began testing sewage at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport in May, adopting a technique that has also been used to track the spread of Covid-19.

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UK scientists take ‘promising’ step towards single Covid and cold vaccine

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Francis Crick Institute in London says area of spike protein of Sars-CoV-2 could form basis of jab against variants and common cold

Scientists have made a “promising” advance towards developing a universal coronavirus vaccine to tackle Covid-19 and the common cold.

Researchers at the Francis Crick Institute in London have discovered that a specific area of the spike protein of Sars-CoV-2 – the virus that causes Covid-19 – is a good target for a pan-coronavirus jab that could offer protection against all the Covid-19 variants and common colds.

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UK needs urgent vaccine drive to curb monkeypox, campaigners say

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Terrence Higgins Trust says action must be stepped up to prevent disease becoming endemic

Health authorities are underestimating the scale of the response required to stop monkeypox becoming endemic in the UK, sexual health campaigners have warned, as a new vaccination drive is launched.

The Terrence Higgins Trust urged the NHS and the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) to urgently pump cash into the system to pay more healthcare workers to administer vaccines. It also wants the number of doses ordered to be doubled to protect against a virus that has infected at least 2,208 people in the UK, according to the latest official figures.

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Skin cancer death rates for men in UK have tripled since 1970s

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Men 69% more likely to die from melanoma than women, says Cancer Research UK, warning that lack of sun protection is a factor

Skin cancer death rates among men have more than tripled since the 1970s, research reveals, prompting fresh warnings from experts to stay safe in the sun.

Since 1973, death rates from melanoma – the deadliest form of skin cancer – have increased by 219% in men, compared with the rise of 76% in women, Cancer Research UK found. As many as 1,400 men are now dying from the disease each year, in contrast to 980 women. This amounts to a total of six people a day, the charity said.

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Wrist-worn trackers can detect Covid before symptoms, study finds

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Sensor tech can alert wearer to Covid early, helping to prevent onward transmission

Health trackers worn on the wrist could be used to spot Covid-19 days before any symptoms appear, according to researchers.

Growing numbers of people worldwide use the devices to monitor changes in skin temperature, heart and breathing rates. Now a new study shows that this data could be combined with artificial intelligence (AI) to diagnose Covid-19 even before the first tell-tale signs of the disease appear.

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Gel that repairs heart attack damage could improve health of millions

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Injectable, biodegradable technology developed by UK team works as a scaffold to help new tissue grow

British researchers have developed a biodegradable gel to repair damage caused by a heart attack in a breakthrough that could improve the health of millions of survivors worldwide.

There are more than 100,000 hospital admissions every year due to heart attacks in the UK alone – one every five minutes. Medical advances mean more people than ever before survive, with 1.4 million Britons alive today after experiencing a heart attack. But hearts have a very limited ability to regenerate, meaning survivors are left at risk of heart failure and other health problems.

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Let doctors use MDMA to treat veterans with PTSD and depression, former ADF boss says

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Chris Barrie says he hopes common sense will prevail and the TGA will allow drug to be more readily used to treat patients

The former chief of the Australian defence force, Chris Barrie, is campaigning to remove barriers stymying doctors from using MDMA to treat veterans suffering post-traumatic stress disorder and depression, saying he hopes “common sense is going to prevail”.

Late last year, the Therapeutic Goods Administration decided against downgrading the classification of psilocybin or MDMA as a prohibited substance to a controlled substance, a move which would have increased patient access.

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Medical research stalled as NHS focuses on small number of trials, experts say

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Report outlines ‘research waste’ that occurred during the pandemic, with weakly designed trials exposing millions to unproven treatments

Government efforts to focus NHS resources on a smaller number of well-designed clinical trials could inadvertently be contributing to a backlog of stalled medical research, and result in some important trials being scrapped, researchers say.

Their warning comes as a report outlines the scale of “research waste” that has occurred during the pandemic, with rampant duplication of scientific efforts and weakly designed clinical trials exposing millions of patients to unproven treatments, with little scientific benefit.

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AstraZeneca reviews diversity in trials to ensure drugs work for all

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Firm aims to apply ‘equity lens’ across clinical tests to ensure diverse population groups take part

The pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca is conducting a major review of diversity across its trials in an attempt to ensure its medicines work for all population groups, although it has admitted that including pregnant women is a particular challenge.

The head of oncology at Britain’s biggest drugmaker, David Fredrickson told the Guardian that the firm was among those leading efforts to improve participation of people of colour and other under-represented groups in clinical trials.

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More monkeypox cases detected in UK ‘on daily basis’, says scientist

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Twenty cases confirmed in UK amid reports of child being admitted to intensive care in London hospital

More monkeypox cases are being detected in Britain “on a daily basis”, a senior doctor has warned, amid reports that a child has been admitted to intensive care with the disease.

Dr Susan Hopkins, a chief medical adviser to the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), said an update on confirmed cases would be released on Monday as efforts continue to contain the outbreak using contact tracing, testing and vaccination.

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British scientist says US anti-abortion lawyers misused his work to attack Roe v Wade

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Giandomenico Iannetti, a pain expert at UCL, angrily denies that his research suggests foetuses can feel pain before 24 weeks

A University College London scientist has accused lawyers in the US of misusing his groundbreaking work on the brain to justify the dismantling of Roe v Wade, the landmark ruling that legalised abortion nationally in America.

Giandomenico Iannetti said his research, which used imaging to understand the adult brain’s response to pain, had been wrongly interpreted to make an anti-abortion argument.

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Australian researchers uncover clue to rare and severe response to Covid in children

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Breakthrough could improve diagnosis and lead to development of treatment for condition that has baffled doctors for two years

In the first months after Covid emerged, doctors were baffled by rare and severe responses to the virus in some children, whose symptoms included lung disease, blood clotting and heart damage.

Two years later and researchers led by the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute [MCRI] in Melbourne have uncovered the proteins involved in these acute inflammatory responses in children.

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Number of UK children suffering from hepatitis rises to 145

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Concerns rise about surge as scientists say lack of exposure to viruses during Covid restrictions could be factor

The number of children in the UK suffering from severe hepatitis has risen to 145 as concerns mount about the mysterious surge in cases.

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) announced an increase of 34 cases but said most children have recovered and no children have died. There has been no increase from the 10 children who have required a liver transplant, reported on Monday.

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More than half of Americans have had Covid, including three of four children

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A CDC report showed a striking increase in those with coronavirus antibodies between December and February

More than half of Americans show signs of a previous Covid-19 infection, including three out of every four children, according to a new report released on Tuesday.

The findings from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) come after researchers examined blood samples from more than 200,000 Americans and looked for virus-fighting antibodies made from infections, not vaccines. They found that signs of past infection rose dramatically between December and February, when the more contagious Omicron variant surged through the US.

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Only 29% of UK Covid hospital patients recover within a year

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Of the 750,000 hospitalised, many still report fatigue, muscle pain, insomnia and breathlessness, with women worst affected

Fewer than one in three people who have been hospitalised with Covid-19 have fully recovered a year after they succumbed to infection.

That is the shock finding of a survey into the impact of long Covid in the UK. The team of scientists and doctors at Leicester University also found that women had poorer recovery rates than men after hospitalisation, while obesity was also likely to hinder a person’s prospects of health improvements.

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Pigs can pass deadly superbugs to people, study reveals

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Research into C difficile found antibiotic resistance is growing as a result of overuse on farm stock

Scientists have uncovered evidence that dangerous versions of superbugs can spread from pigs to humans. The discovery underlines fears that intensive use of antibiotics on farms is leading to the spread of microbes resistant to them.

The discovery of the link has been made by Semeh Bejaoui and Dorte Frees of Copenhagen University and Soren Persson at Denmark’s Statens Serum Institute and focuses on the superbug Clostridioides difficile, which is considered one of the world’s major antibiotic resistance threats.

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First person to have Covid infection for more than a year identified in UK

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Researchers at London hospitals call for urgent new treatments for persistent infections

Doctors in the UK have called for urgent new treatments to clear persistent Covid infections after identifying the first person in the world known to have harboured the virus for more than a year.

The patient, who had a weakened immune system, caught the virus in 2020 and tested positive for Covid for 505 days before they died. Previously, the longest known PCR-confirmed case of Covid was a US cancer survivor in her 40s who tested positive for 335 days.

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Lifelong excess weight can nearly double risk of womb cancer – study

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Bristol study finds that for every five extra BMI units a woman’s risk of endometrial cancer increases by 88%

Lifelong excess weight may almost double a woman’s risk of developing womb cancer, research suggests.

Scientists and doctors have known for some time that being overweight or obese increases the risk of the disease. About one in three cases in the UK (34%) are linked to excess weight.

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