Women with an average risk of developing ovarian cancer who are screened more frequently are no more likely to survive than women who receive usual care, according to a study presented at 2011 American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting.
The study was part of the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal and Ovarian (PCLO) Cancer Screening Trial, which is designed to determine the effect of specific cancer screening tests on cause-specific mortality.
The research team selected 78,216 women ranging in age from 55 to 74 years of age. The women were randomly assigned to an intervention group who were screened for ovarian cancer on a yearly basis using serum cancer antigen 125 and transvaginal ultrasound or to receive the usual care. Individuals were followed up for 13 years with specific death due to ovarian cancer marking the end point of follow-up. In that time, 212 women in the intervention group were diagnosed with ovarian cancer, compared to 176 in the usual care group. Overall, 118 of the women in the intervention group died of their cancer (3.1 deaths per 10,000 persons) compared to 100 deaths in the usual care group (2.6 per 10,000).
While the study’s findings show little difference in the mortality rates for patients screened more aggressively, the research team wrote they believe the tests employed can provide benefits if they are used differently. Author Saundra Buys recommended using the cancer antigen 125 test to track changes over periods of time instead of relying on the results of single tests, as was done in the study. Buys also called for more research to support that hypothesis.
Women who smoke have a significantly elevated risk of developing peripheral artery disease (PAD), even if they only smoke for a short period of time.
The study, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, looked at 38,825 women at least 45 years of age for a period of 12.7 years. Researchers wanted to see if smoking raised the risk of PAD, a type of peripheral vascular disease in which an artery is partially or totally blocked, often leading to one limb. They also wanted to know if quitting smoking reduced the risk and if so, by how much.
Participants were questioned on their smoking status and history, including how many cigarettes were smoked each day. Over the 12.7 years, participants filed updated questionnaires that also asked about PAD symptoms. The results showed that smoking was a major risk factor for PAD, increasing the risk of developing it by as much as 10-fold compared to women who never smoked. The team also found that quitting smoking decreased the risk but that risk never fell to the same low level of women who never smoked.
“This is significant because PAD is a disease that not only causes a lot of pain and discomfort with usual, daily activities but it also increases the risk of heart attack,” wrote lead author Eruna Pradhan.
Men who bullied other children in their childhood years are much more likely to act violently towards their domestic partners later in life, according to a study in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.
Referring to domestic violence as intimate-partner violence (IPV), a team at the Harvard School of Public Health decided to investigate the hypothesized link between childhood bullying and IPV. Researchers surveyed individuals at three city community health centres, recruiting 1,491 men aged 18 to 35 years. All were questioned about IPV and if they had been violent towards their intimate partners over the last 12 months, whether they had been bullies at school or whether they had been bullied. They were also asked about exposure to parental IPV and community violence, childhood sexual or physical abuse and participation in violent or non-violent misbehaviour.
The findings revealed that of the total men surveyed, 38.2 per cent of respondents indicated they had frequently bullied other kids at school, compared to 26.1 per cent who said they rarely had done so. When correlated with other data, the study found that those who said they frequently bullied other children while at school were 3.82 times more likely to be involved in IPV, compared to infrequent bullies who were 1.53 times as likely.
“Critically, this analysis demonstrates that those reporting school bullying are significantly more likely to perpetrate physical or sexual IPV,” the authors wrote. They called for more programming to reduce bullying, stating it could influence further IPV.
