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Press releases Saturday 23 October 2004
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(1) SCHIZOPHRENIA RISK HIGHER IN CHILDREN OF OLDER FATHERS
(3) SLEEP APNOEA INCREASES RISKS IN GENERAL ANAESTHESIA
(4) MISCONCEPTIONS
ABOUT SEXUAL VIOLENCE COMMON AMONG SOUTH AFRICAN YOUTH
(1) SCHIZOPHRENIA RISK HIGHER IN CHILDREN OF OLDER FATHERS
Online First
(Paternal age and schizophrenia: a population based cohort study)
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/reprint/bmj.38243.672396.55
Children of older fathers are more likely to develop schizophrenia in later life, concludes new research published on bmj.com today.
These findings add weight to the theory that accumulating mutations in the sperm of older fathers contributes to the overall risk of schizophrenia.
The study involved over 700,000 people born in Sweden between 1973 and 1980. The analysis was based on records of people admitted to hospital between 1989-2001 with a diagnosis of schizophrenia or other non-affective psychosis.
There was a strong association between increased paternal age at conception and their offspring's risk of schizophrenia, which remained even after taking account of a range of other factors that could have affected the results.
Overall, 15.5% of cases of schizophrenia in this group may have been due to the patient having a father who was aged over 30 years at birth, say the authors.
The association seemed to be relatively specific to schizophrenia compared with non-affective psychosis and was stronger in those with no family history of the disorder. This supports the theory that accumulating mutations in the germ lines of older fathers might contribute to an increased risk of schizophrenia, they add.
In England and Wales the average paternal age has increased from 29.2 years in 1980 to 32.1 in 2002. Based on their data, the authors estimate that this increase could have led to an additional 710 cases of schizophrenia in 2002 over and above the 5,923 cases due to the background incidence rate.
Contacts:
Finn Rasmussen, Senior Clinical
Lecturer and Associate Professor of Epidemiology, Department of Public Health
Sciences, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden
Email: finn.rasmussen@phs.ki.se
David Gunnell, Professor of Epidemiology,
Department of Social Medicine, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
Email: D.J.Gunnell@bristol.ac.uk
(Letters: Preventing the
spread of MRSA)
http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/329/7472/978
The attitude towards MRSA in the United Kingdom is a case of shutting the gate after the horse has bolted, argues a doctor in a letter to this week's BMJ.
Nicholas Akerman's experience of working in Australia was that people are unable to work with patients without being screened and cleared. Yet, having worked in England in medicine for over 12 years, he has never once been screened. "Surely we should at least be adopting this policy to help combat the problem?" he asks.
He also believes that patients themselves must shoulder some of the blame in bringing MRSA into hospitals. "It would be a mammoth task to screen the entire hospital population, but a staggered approach would be a start," he writes.
In the long term, stopping MRSA being brought in at the front door, so reducing lengthy hospital stays, expensive drug treatment, and potential litigation, will be more cost effective, he concludes.
The spread of MRSA has been wholly apportioned to poor handwashing techniques by doctors and nurses. Although handwashing must be improved, other quite blatant modes of transmission are swept aside, adds Frank Conroy in another letter.
For instance, practices such as taking blood (phlebotomy) may well be giving MRSA the helping hand it needs.
Phlebotomists currently use the same tourniquet to take blood from patients on all the wards throughout the hospital, no doubt ensuring a spread of MRSA. To overcome this risk of transmission, the tourniquet must be disposed of after each use, he writes.
Contacts:
Nicholas Akerman, Research Registrar,
St James' University Hospital, Leeds, UK Available via
email only: nik_lucy@hotmail.com
Frank Conroy, Senior House Officer,
Pinderfields Hospital, Wakefield, UK
Email: drfrank77@yahoo.co.uk
(3) SLEEP APNOEA INCREASES RISKS IN GENERAL ANAESTHESIA
(Risks of general anaesthesia
in people with obstructive sleep apnoea)
http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/329/7472/955
Patients with obstructive sleep apnoea are at high risk of developing complications when having surgery under general anaesthesia, say researchers in this week's BMJ.
People with sleep apnoea temporarily stop breathing for 10 seconds or more during sleep. The typical sufferer is overweight and a heavy snorer. Obstructive sleep apnoea is the most common type, affecting 2% of women and 4% of men in middle age.
Surgeons of all specialties, and particularly anaesthetists, should be aware that obstructive sleep apnoea is undiagnosed in an estimated 80% of patients, say the authors. They should be alert to patients who are at risk of having obstructive sleep apnoea and be aware of the potential complications before and after surgery, even for surgery not related to the condition.
Options that should be considered include alternative methods of pain relief, use of nasal continuous positive airway pressure before and after surgery, and surveillance in an intensive care unit, especially after nasal surgery, conclude the authors.
Contacts:
Cindy den Herder, Resident in Ear,
Nose, and Throat Surgery, Department of Head and Neck Surgery, St Lucas Andreas
Hospital, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Email: c.denherder@slaz.nl
or
John Buijs, Public Relations, St
Lucas Andreas Hospital, Amsterdam, Netherlands
(4) MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT SEXUAL VIOLENCE COMMON AMONG SOUTH AFRICAN YOUTH
(National cross sectional
study of views on sexual violence and risk of HIV infection and AIDS among
South African school pupils)
http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/329/7472/952
Misconceptions about sexual violence and the risk of HIV infection and AIDS are common among South African youth, finds a study in this week's BMJ.
Researchers surveyed over 269,000 South African school pupils aged 10-19 years about their views on and experiences of sexual violence.
Misconceptions about sexual violence were common among both sexes, but more females held views that would put them at high risk of HIV infection.
Around 11% of males and 4% of females claimed to have forced someone else to have sex. Most of these had themselves been forced to have sex, suggesting that a history of forced sex distorted perceptions about sexual violence and risk of HIV infection.
One in three youth believed they could be HIV positive. One in four of these had not even had sex, an indicator of ignorance of the mechanism of HIV infection, say the authors. This failure of education comes at an important cost: youth who believed they were HIV positive had misconceptions similar to those who had forced someone else to have sex.
The views of South African youth on sexual violence and on the risk of HIV infection and AIDS were compatible with acceptance of sexual coercion and "adaptive" attitudes to survival in a violent society, conclude the authors.
Contacts:
Neil Andersson, Scientific Director,
Centro de Investigacion de Enfermedades Tropicales (CIET) Universidad Autonoma
de Guerrero, Acapulco, Mexico
Email: neil@ciet.org
Heidi Sonnekus, Information Officer
Email: heidi@ciet.org
Jorge Laucirica, Information Officer
(English, Spanish, French)
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