Doing the rounds

Published on Monday 10 November 2008 19:41

NEWS SCOTTISH breast cancer patients are risking their lives by failing to take their prescription drugs, according to a researchers at Dundee University.

They found that half of the women studied failed to complete a five-year course of the tamoxifen drug, and one fifth regularly forgot to take a tablet.

Experts say that a five-year course of the treatment increases the chances of survival from the disease and a recent study showed that skipping a tablet once every five days can increase the risk of death by up to 10 per cent.

The Dundee University team studied the prescription and health records of more than 2,000 Scottish women. They found that 10 per cent stopped taking tamoxifen after one year, 19 per cent after two years and 32 per cent after three-and-a-half years. In total, 52 per cent failed to complete the recommended course. Younger women were found to be more likely to stop the medication early.

The research was funded by the Medical Research Council and Breast Cancer Research (Scotland), and published in the British Journal of Cancer.

&#149 BREASTFEEDING for at least four months may reduce a child's susceptibility to asthma, according to research published in the journal Thorax.

In a study of nearly 1,500 children on the Isle of Wight, a team at St Mary's Hospital found increased lung function in those who had been breast fed.

The researchers suggest that certain chemicals found in breast milk may boost the development of the child's immune system.

&#149 THE Royal College of Nursing (RCN) Scotland has called on the Scottish Government to put patient dignity at the centre of all its health policies.

Speaking a month after the launch of the organisation's "dignity-proofed" campaign, Ellen Hudson, RCN associate director said: "RCN Scotland is calling on the government and health boards to ensure that all decisions they make that impact on patient care are "dignity-proofed". This means that all such decisions, whether they concern staff numbers or the design of wards, must result in levels of dignity being improved, or at the very least maintained."

&#149 AN INTERNATIONAL agreement to promote the regulation of alcohol is necessary to tackle increasing alcohol abuse, according to experts writing in the British Medical Journal.

Professor Laura Schmidt from the University of California and colleagues say alcohol is the only psychoactive substance not subject to global control.

They call for the introduction of a worldwide framework on alcohol, similar to the 2005 framework convention on tobacco that controls the marketing and tax policies surrounding the substance.

AWARDS

A RESEARCHER at Glasgow University has won one of the world's most prestigious science prizes.

Dr Enock Matovu a biomedical scientist from Uganda was presented with the Royal Society Pfizer Award for his work on sleeping sickness, a condition that kills thousands in Africa each year. He also received an honorary research fellowship from Glasgow University.

&#149 NHS Grampian chief executive, Richard Carey has been made a companion of the Institute of Healthcare Management, becoming one of only 12 others in Scotland to receive the accolade.

He was recognised for his contribution to health care management over his 27-year career in the NHS.

&#149 A BIONIC hand created from research carried out in NHS Lothian over 20 years ago has been named one of the best inventions of 2008 by Time magazine.

The i-LIMB, which is the first commercially available hand of its type is the result of research started in the early 1980s by NHS Lothian's bio-engineering centre in Edinburgh and David Gow of South-East Mobility and Rehabilitation Technology Services.

The device was developed by Livingston-based Touch Bionics and finally launched in 2007. It has now been fitted to 400 patients worldwide and was named the top medical invention in the magazine rundown.