Releases Saturday 16 February 2002
No 7334 Volume 324
Please remember to credit the BMJ as source when publicising
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If your story is posted on a website please include a link back to
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(1) UK HEALTH SERVICE IS FAILING LUNG
CANCER PATIENTS
(2) BMJ
JOURNALS NOW FREE FOR THE 100
POOREST COUNTRIES
(3) EMERGENCY
HOSPITAL TEAM HALVES
CARDIAC ARREST
DEATHS
(4) CAN
POOR GROWTH EXPLAIN LINK
BETWEEN MARITAL
STATUS AND HEALTH?
(1) UK HEALTH
SERVICE IS FAILING LUNG
CANCER PATIENTS
(Thoracic surgery in a crisis)
http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/324/7334/376
Less than 10% of lung cancer patients in
the United
Kingdom receive effective treatment because
of a dire
shortage of specialist thoracic surgeons,
according to
an editorial in this week's BMJ.
Respiratory disease kills one in four people
in the UK,
nearly twice the European average, yet
tackling
respiratory illness is not a government
priority, writes
Professor Martyn Partridge of Imperial
College
London. This creates pressure on surgeons
and
prevents many patients getting the vital
treatment they
need.
A new report from the British Thoracic
Society and the
Society of Cardiothoracic Surgeons of
Great Britain
and Ireland calls for immediate action
to double the
number of thoracic surgeons and increase
investment
to meet European average standards.
The time has now come to double the number
of
thoracic surgeons in the UK by welcoming
more from
overseas, retraining surgeons in other
fields, and
encouraging the young into this specialty,
says the
author. We should look at delivering care
in different
ways so that the limited number of doctors
can be
targeted at specialties such as thoracic
surgery, where
the need is desperate, he concludes.
Contact:
Martyn Partridge, Professor of Respiratory
Medicine,
Imperial College of Science, Technology
and Medicine,
London, UK
(2) BMJ JOURNALS
NOW FREE FOR THE 100
POOREST COUNTRIES
(BMJ journals free to the developing
world)
http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/324/7334/380
BMJ specialist journals, such as Gut, Heart
and
Thorax, are now free online to anybody
in the 100
poorest countries of the world, which
between them
include most of the world's population.
For almost a year, the 23 journals have
been free to the
50 poorest countries in the world. Extending
the
scheme should fuel a virtuous circle of
increasing
access, writes Dr Richard Smith, in this
week's BMJ.
The BMJ is by no means alone in providing
free access
to those in the developing world, but
some cynics
wonder if such initiatives might be an
empty gesture as
internet access in the developing world
is limited. Yet
access in the developing world is skyrocketing.
Around
40 million people in India are expected
to have internet
access within five years, and similarly
dramatic
increases are expected in Nigeria.
The magic of information is that increased
access
means more value for everybody, writes
Dr Smith. A
piece of information that might mean nothing
to most
people might lead to a deep insight in
somebody. This is
how science develops. And that remarkable
person ?
perhaps a Neils Bohr (Nobel Prize winner
for physics)
� is just as likely to be in the developing
world as
anywhere else.
Contacts:
Dr Richard Smith, Editor BMJ, BMA House,
London,
UK
Email: editor{at}bmj.com
Dr Joseph Ana, Editor, BMJ West Africa
Email: jana{at}hrilimited.com
Dr Glen Christo, Editor, BMJ India
Email: glenchristo{at}yahoo.com
Dr Anne Cockroft, Editor, Occupational
and
Environmental Medicine Mob
Email: CIETeurope{at}compuserve.com
(3) EMERGENCY
HOSPITAL TEAM HALVES
CARDIAC ARREST DEATHS
(Effects of a medical emergency team
on reduction of
incidence of and mortality from
unexpected cardiac
arrests in hospital: preliminary
study)
http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/324/7334/387
Early intervention by a medical emergency
team can
reduce deaths from unexpected cardiac
arrest in
hospital by half, finds a study in this
week's BMJ.
Researchers in Australia recorded the level
of and
deaths from cardiac arrest in a single
hospital over two
12 month periods: before (1996) and after
(1999) the
introduction of a medical emergency team.
In 1996 there were 73 cases of unexpected
cardiac
arrest compared with 47 cases in 1999.
Death rates
were also reduced from 77% to 55% after
the system
had been introduced. Overall, the intervention
was
associated with a 50% reduction in cardiac
arrest.
Implementing the system required considerable
cultural
change throughout the hospital, which
could explain
some of the observed effects, say the
authors.
Nevertheless, these results show than
an early
intervention, together with a system of
support and
education, can significantly reduce the
number of
cardiac arrests and deaths from cardiac
arrest in
hospital, they conclude.
Contact:
Michael Buist, Director of Intensive Care
Unit,
Dandenong Hospital, Australia
Email: acmdbuist{at}bigpond.com
(4) CAN POOR GROWTH
EXPLAIN LINK
BETWEEN MARITAL STATUS AND HEALTH?
(Prenatal growth, subsequent marital
status, and
mortality: longitudinal study)
http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/324/7334/398
A recent study in the BMJ found that men
who were
small at birth were less likely to marry,
but can slow
growth also explain why unmarried people
are more
likely to die of heart disease?
Researchers from Stockholm University compared
death rates for heart disease and stroke
of never
married and ever married people before
and after
adjusting for early biological and social
factors (birth
weight, marital status of the mother,
and social class at
birth) and social factors in adult life
(occupation,
education, and income).
They found that boys whose growth was slowest
were
least likely to marry and that death rates
from heart
disease and stroke were higher in unmarried
men than
in married men.
However, they suggest that differences
associated with
marital status in rates of heart disease
or stroke are
unlikely to have their roots in early
growth restriction.
Adult occupation, income, and education
are far more
important.
Despite biological and social factors evolving
together
and influencing each other, early growth
may not
explain why unmarried people have higher
death rates,
they conclude.
Contact:
Professor Denny Vagero, Centre for Health
Equity
Studies of Stockholm University and Karolinska
Institute, Stockholm University, Sweden
Email: denny.vagero{at}chess.su.se
FOR ACCREDITED JOURNALISTS
Embargoed press releases and articles are available from:
Public Affairs Division
BMA House
Tavistock Square
London WC1H 9JR
(contact: pressoffice{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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