Monthly Archives: July 2017

Quality of systematic reviews is variable: what guidelines are appropriate?

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For systematic reviews to be considered a gold standard, it is vital that they are methodologically sound and well reported. To ensure this, there are a plethora of tools available to researchers; knowing which to use, however, isn’t always easy. In this blog Kusala Pussegoda, author of a paper published today in Systematic Reviews discusses which tools and guidelines are most appropriate in different contexts.

Medical Evidence Medicine

Height, obesity and prostate cancer risk: the importance of looking at different tumour characteristics

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Taller men and men with more body fat are both at an increased risk of high grade prostate cancer and death from prostate cancer, finds a new study published in BMC Medicine which analyzed data from the EPIC cohort. In this blog author of the study, Dr Aurora Perez-Cornago, tells us about the findings and the importance of differentiating between high grade and advanced stage tumors

Health Medicine

Celebrating Cancer Immunotherapy Month

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This June saw the fifth annual Cancer Immunotherapy Month uniting patients, caregivers, advocacy organizations, health care professionals and industry partners who share the common goal of raising awareness of the lifesaving potential of cancer immunotherapies. Immunotherapy, often referred to as biotherapy, is exactly what the name infers — treatment that uses parts of the immune system to fight diseases such as cancer. Cancer-specific immunotherapy, also known as immuno-oncology, is one of the largest areas of immunotherapy research.

Medicine

Indolent Thyroid Cancer: New Challenges from an Epidemic of Diagnosis

The incidence of thyroid cancer has been rising steadily in the United States and around the world, but the reason does not seem to be an inherent rise in thyroid cancer incidence, but rather the increased detection of thyroid cancer. Here to tell us about detecting indolent thyroid cancer and the pros and cons of active surveillance is Dr. Lewis D. Hahn and Dr. Terry S. Desser, authors of a study published in Cancers of the Head & Neck.

Medicine

Chief Medical Officer’s fifth annual report (advocacy volume) on genomics highlights the potential for pathogen genomics in patient diagnosis and infection control

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The Chief Medical Officer’s (CMO) fifth annual report (advocacy volume) on genomics was published earlier this week. This sets out the latest evidence-based understanding of genomics in clinical practice in a series of chapters written by leading experts in their field, together with recommendations by the CMO that will drive this innovation closer and more rapidly towards patient care and benefit.

Medicine