Press Releases Saturday 19 September 1998
No 7161 Volume 317
Please remember to credit the BMJ as source when publicising an
article and to tell your readers that they can read its full text on
the
journal's web site (http://www.bmj.com).
If your story is posted on a website please include a link back to
the source BMJ article (URLs are given under titles).
(1) Lung Cancer Patients Need More Help in Making Treatment Choices
(2) WORKING LONG HOURS CAN
DAMAGE YOUR HEALTH -
BUT
SO CAN WORKING VERY FEW
(3) British TV Medical Dramas
Are More Realistic Than
Their
American Counterparts
(1) Lung
Cancer Patients Need More Help in Making
Treatment Choices
(Preferences for chemotherapy
in patients with advanced non-small
cell lung cancer: descriptive
study based on scripted interviews)
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/317/7161/771
Little is known about how lung cancer patients value the
potential benefits
and risks on chemotherapy. In this week�s BMJ Professor
Gerard
Silvestri from the Medical University of South Carolina
and colleagues
report that some patients with lung cancer may not be
getting the
treatment they would choose if they were fully informed.
In their survey of 81 patients who had received chemotherapy
treatment,
several people said that they would choose chemotherapy
if it would
increase their survival by as little as a week, whereas
others say they
would not choose this option, even if it meant they would
live for another
two years. The majority of those interviewed claimed
that if undergoing
chemotherapy would prolong their life by three months,
they would only
take this option if it could improve their quality of
life for this period.
Most patients would want considerably more time than
chemotherapy
could currently provide.
Patients previously treated with chemotherapy vary considerably
in their
attitudes towards this highly toxic treatment and the
authors conclude
that choosing the proper treatment for cancer patients
requires that
they are fully aware of the merits of chemotherapy. Their
results suggest
that currently some patients may not be getting what
they want.
Contact:
Gerard Silvestri, Associate Professor
of Medicine,
Medical University of South Carolina,
Charleston USA
email: silvestri{at}musc.edu
(2) WORKING
LONG HOURS CAN DAMAGE YOUR HEALTH -
BUT SO CAN WORKING VERY FEW
(Working hours as a risk factor for
acute myocardial
infarction in Japan: case-control study)
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/317/7161/775
It is suspected that extremely long working hours increase
the
risk of sudden death from too much occupational stress,
but
few medical studies have examined whether working hours
influence the risk of heart attack (acute myocardial
infarction).
In a Japanese study published in this week�s BMJ,
Dr Shigeru
Sokejima and Professor Sadanobu Kagamimori report that
there is a �U� shaped association between the mean monthly
working hours and the risk of heart attack (ie. those
people
who work very few or very long hours are at greatest
risk).
The authors also found that the risk increased with the
length
of hours people worked. They suggest that further research
should be conducted to assess why this relationship exists,
particularly in Japan where the incidence of heart attack
is
relatively low.
Contact:
Dr Shigeru Sokejima, Department
of Welfare Promotion
and Epidemiology, Faculty of Medicine,Toyama
Medical
and Pharmaceutical University,
Japan
email: sokejima{at}ms.toyama-mpu.ac.jp
(3) British
TV Medical Dramas Are More Realistic Than
Their American Counterparts
(As seen on TV: observational
study of cardiopulmonary
resuscitation in British
television medical dramas)
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/317/7161/780
The public�s knowledge of cardiopulmonary
resuscitation (CPR)
can be derived from, among other
things, television drama. In
this week�s BMJ Dr
Patrick Gordon and colleagues from South
Cleveland Hospital, Middlesbrough
report the findings of the
their study of the portrayal of
CPR in 64 episodes of Casualty,
Cardiac Arrest and Medics!
A total of 52 on-screen cardiac
arrests occurred in 40 of the 64
episodes reviewed and the
authors found that a quarter of
patients in these TV medical
dramas who received CPR survived,
which is fairly comparable
to real life. However, they also
noted that patients on television
are more likely to be younger and
suffer cardiac arrest as a
result of trauma than is the case
in the real world.
Gordon and colleagues conclude that
the overall survival rate
of patients after CPR in British
television medical dramas
seems to be more realistic than
in American programmes,
such as ER, Chicago Hope
and Baywatch which tend to portray
an overoptimistic survival rates
(over three quarters of
patients pull through).
Contact:
Dr Patrick Gordon, Department of
Obstetrics and Gynaecology,
South Cleveland Hospital, Middlesborough
email: patrickg{at}globalnet.co.uk
(Drug treatments for asthma may cause
erosive tooth damage)
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/317/7161/820
Elizabeth O�Sullivan and Martin Curzon from the Department
of
Paediatric Dentistry at Leeds Dental Institute suggest
that some drug
treatments for asthma may be causing tooth erosion in
children. In
their letter published in this week�s BMJ the
authors give "early
warning" that children using asthma drugs in a powdered
(rather
than aerosol) form, may be prone to increased dissolution
of the
enamel surfaces of their teeth. This is because the powdered
form
of the drug is more acidic.
The authors suggest that as more children are now using
the
powdered form of asthma drugs, doctors should advise
children
to rinse their mouths with water directly after taking
the drugs as
well as encouraging them to clean their teeth thoroughly
twice a
day with fluoride toothpaste. They hope that such procedures
will help prevent dental erosion and the wider psychological
and
financial implications that may ensue.
Contact:
Elizabeth O�Sullivan, Senior Registrar,
Department of Paediatric Dentistry,
Leeds Dental Institute, Leeds
FOR ACCREDITED JOURNALISTS
Embargoed press releases and articles are available from:
Public Affairs Division
BMA House
Tavistock Square
London WC1H 9JR
(contact Jill Shepherd;jshepher{at}bma.org.uk)
and from:
the EurekAlert website, run by the American Association for the
Advancement of Science
(http://www.eurekalert.org)
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