[World Report] Gairdner Awards 2018 honour GBD studies
Creators of the GBD studies look back at almost two decades since the first iteration. Other awards recognised the fields of optogenetics, epigenetics, and lung cancer research. Brian Owens reports. (Source: LANCET)
Source: LANCET - March 30, 2018 Category: General Medicine Authors: Brian Owens Tags: World Report Source Type: research
[Comment] Offline: The Palestinian health predicament worsens
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which administers health services to 5 ·3 million Palestinian refugees through 143 primary health facilities, is in acute crisis. After President Trump cut almost US$300 million from UNRWA's 2018 budget, services will run out of money by the end of May. Irrespective of one's views about the complex politics of the Middle East, America's decision to threaten the provision of basic health care to millions of dependent people seems utterly cruel. This emergency was a major theme of last week's annual Lancet Palestinian Health Alliance (LPHA) scientific meeting, held in Beir...
Source: LANCET - March 30, 2018 Category: General Medicine Authors: Richard Horton Tags: Comment Source Type: research
[Comment] Transparency of retracting and replacing articles
Journal editors are responsible for the integrity of the published record and must correct it when necessary. They are getting better at this job, as evidenced by journal retraction policies1 and numbers of article retractions.2 Most retractions are due to misconduct, but about 20% are retracted because of an unintentional error or methodological flaw.2 To credit the correction of an honest error and avoid stigmatisation of authors, journals have begun a practice of retraction with republication of a corrected article. (Source: LANCET)
Source: LANCET - March 30, 2018 Category: General Medicine Authors: Tea Marasovi ć, Ana Utrobiĉić, Ana Maruŝić Tags: Comment Source Type: research
[Editorial] Cybersecurity and patient protection
Network-connected devices and data are vulnerable to attack, exploitation, and unintended loss. The alleged harvesting of profiles from 50 million people by Cambridge Analytica through friend networks on Facebook is the most recent and egregious example. In May, 2017, the WannaCry ransomware that infected more than 200 000 computers across 100 countries also infiltrated a third of National Health Service trusts, and brought some services to a standstill. Yet, despite agreement on the need for better cyber hygiene (risk management and online health), there is no consensus on what form it should take. (Source: LANCET)
Source: LANCET - March 30, 2018 Category: General Medicine Authors: The Lancet Tags: Editorial Source Type: research
[Editorial] Good news for the world's newest nation
Despite South Sudan's crippling civil war, the country has interrupted the transmission of Guinea worm disease, announced the Carter Center on March 21. This disease is now on the edge of eradication, with only six countries reporting low rates of infection. (Source: LANCET)
Source: LANCET - March 30, 2018 Category: General Medicine Authors: The Lancet Tags: Editorial Source Type: research
[Editorial] Dementia in the UK: preparing the NHS for new treatments
Dementia is a devastating disease that brings fear, confusion, and loneliness to the lives of patients and their families. Today, around 850 000 people in the UK are living with dementia, costing the National Health Service (NHS) and UK society more than £26 million annually. By 2025, it is estimated that over 1 million people in the UK will be affected, with the prevalence and costs of care for these patients expected to double by 2 050. These are worrisome figures given the absence of any safe, clinically effective, disease-modifying therapy for Alzheimer's disease or other forms of dementia. (Source: LANCET)
Source: LANCET - March 30, 2018 Category: General Medicine Authors: The Lancet Tags: Editorial Source Type: research
[Articles] Pyronaridine –artesunate or dihydroartemisinin–piperaquine versus current first-line therapies for repeated treatment of uncomplicated malaria: a randomised, multicentre, open-label, longitudinal, controlled, phase 3b/4 trial
Pyronaridine –artesunate and dihydroartemisinin–piperaquine treatment and retreatment of malaria were well tolerated with efficacy that was non-inferior to first-line ACTs. Greater access to these efficacious treatments in west Africa is justified. (Source: LANCET)
Source: LANCET - March 29, 2018 Category: General Medicine Authors: The West African Network for Clinical Trials of Antimalarial Drugs (WANECAM) Tags: Articles Source Type: research
[Comment] Widening the options for recurrent malaria
The global need for new antimalarial drugs and new combinations is enormous and urgent,1,2 but their successful delivery needs resilience to overcome the barriers imposed by expensive and lengthy clinical development plans. Attention is often directed to areas such as southeast Asia, where some antimalarial combinations are failing but transmission intensities are much lower than in sub-Saharan African countries. Children in Africa have frequent and life-threatening malaria infections as they grow up, and these need to be treated safely. (Source: LANCET)
Source: LANCET - March 29, 2018 Category: General Medicine Authors: Quique Bassat, Sanjeev Krishna Tags: Comment Source Type: research
[Articles] Dysfunction of NaV1.4, a skeletal muscle voltage-gated sodium channel, in sudden infant death syndrome: a case-control study
Rare SCN4A variants that directly alter NaV1.4 function occur in infants who had died from SIDS. These variants are predicted to significantly alter muscle membrane excitability and compromise respiratory and laryngeal function. These findings indicate that dysfunction of muscle sodium channels is a potentially modifiable risk factor in a subset of infant sudden deaths. (Source: LANCET)
Source: LANCET - March 28, 2018 Category: General Medicine Authors: Roope M ännikkö, Leonie Wong, David J Tester, Michael G Thor, Richa Sud, Dimitri M Kullmann, Mary G Sweeney, Costin Leu, Sanjay M Sisodiya, David R FitzPatrick, Margaret J Evans, Iona J M Jeffrey, Jacob Tfelt-Hansen, Marta C Cohen, Peter J Fleming, Amie Tags: Articles Source Type: research
[Comment] Skeletal muscle channelopathy: a new risk for sudden infant death syndrome
Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) remains a leading cause of infant mortality, despite a steadily decreasing incidence since the 1990s.1 The reasons for this decline are debated, but it could be due to methodological reasons (eg, changes in reporting or advances in diagnosis of specific diseases) or a reduction of risks, such as an increase in supine sleeping position for infants, as advocated by the Back to Sleep campaign.2 A better understanding of the causes of SIDS is needed to identify infants at high risk and to develop interventions and guidelines that will prevent SIDS for all infants. (Source: LANCET)
Source: LANCET - March 28, 2018 Category: General Medicine Authors: Stephen C Cannon Tags: Comment Source Type: research
[Correspondence] It's time for a change of message, it's time for #GunSafetyNow
Following the high school mass-shooting in Parkland, Florida, the hash-tags #GunControl and #GunControlNow have been trending on social media. Because gun control is such a divisive issue among Americans, we suggest an approach that everyone can support. We call for #GunSafetyNow. (Source: LANCET)
Source: LANCET - March 26, 2018 Category: General Medicine Authors: Adam D M Briggs, Elliott S Fisher Tags: Correspondence Source Type: research
[Department of Error] Department of Error
Harrison SA, Rinella ME, Abdelmalek MF, et al. NGM282 for treatment of non-alcoholic steatohepatitis: a multicentre, randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, phase 2 trial. Lancet 2018; 391: 1174 –85 —In this Article (published online first on March 5, 2018), Prof Rohit Loomba's affiliation, the y-axis title of figure 2C, and the version of the appendix available online have been updated. These corrections have been made to the online version as of March 22, 2018, and the printed Article is correct. (Source: LANCET)
Source: LANCET - March 23, 2018 Category: General Medicine Tags: Department of Error Source Type: research
[Department of Error] Department of Error
Lucey M, Clark J, Glasziou P. Public availability of trial protocols. Lancet 2017; 390: e54 –55. In this Comment, PG should not have been listed as a founding member of SPIRIT in the competing interests statement. This correction has been made to the online version as of March 22, 2018. (Source: LANCET)
Source: LANCET - March 23, 2018 Category: General Medicine Tags: Department of Error Source Type: research
[Correspondence] Graded exercise self-help for chronic fatigue syndrome in GETSET – Authors' reply
In the graded exercise therapy guided self-help treatment (GETSET) trial,1 we found that addition of guided graded exercise self-help (GES) to specialist medical care (SMC) safely improved fatigue and physical functioning more than did the comparison treatment of SMC alone. (Source: LANCET)
Source: LANCET - March 23, 2018 Category: General Medicine Authors: Lucy V Clark, Francesca Pesola, Janice M Thomas, Mario Vergara-Williamson, Michelle Beynon, Peter D White Tags: Correspondence Source Type: research
[Correspondence] Graded exercise self-help for chronic fatigue syndrome in GETSET
The CONSORT statement on harms notes that “it is important to report participants who are non-adherent or lost to follow-up because their actions may reflect their inability to tolerate the intervention.”1 It is thus welcome that Lucy Clark and colleagues2 report physiotherapist-rated data on adherence; they considered that only 42% of participants adhered to guided graded exercise self-help (GES) completely or very well. The protocol notes that to “measure departure from intended treatment, participants will be asked at follow-up whether they adhered to the booklet and guidance, and how much PA [physical activity] t...
Source: LANCET - March 23, 2018 Category: General Medicine Authors: Anna Wood Tags: Correspondence Source Type: research
