Effectiveness of Interventions to Increase Screening for Breast, Cervical, and Colorectal Cancers Nine Updated Systematic Reviews for the Guide to Community Preventive Services

Context: Screening reduces mortality from breast, cervical, and colorectal cancers. The Guide to Community Preventive Services previously conducted systematic reviews on the effectiveness of 11 interventions to increase screening for these cancers. This article presents results of updated systematic reviews for nine of these interventions. Evidence acquisition: Five databases were searched for studies published during January 2004–October 2008. Studies had to (1) be a primary investigation of one or more intervention category; (2) be conducted in a country with a high-income economy; (3) provide information on at least one cancer screening outcome of interest; and (4) include screening use prior to intervention implementation or a concurrent group unexposed to the intervention category of interest. Forty-fıve studies were included in the reviews. Evidence synthesis: Recommendations were added for one-on-one education to increase screening with fecal occult blood testing (FOBT) and group education to increase mammography screening. Strength of evidence for client reminder interventions to increase FOBT screening was upgraded from suffıcient to strong. Previous fındings and recommendations for reducing out-of-pocket costs (breast cancer screening); provider assessment and feedback (breast, cervical, and FOBT screening); one-on-one education and client reminders (breast and cervical cancer screening); and reducing structural barriers (breast cancer and FOBT screening) were reaffırmed or unchanged. Evidence remains insuffıcient t

Cancer Treatment for Dual Eligibles: What Are the Costs and Who Pays?

This study quantifies treatment costs for melanoma and breast, cervical, colorectal, lung, and prostate cancer among patients with dual Medicare and Medicaid eligibility. The analyses use merged Medicare and Medicaid Analytic eXtract enrollment and claims data for dually eligible beneficiaries age18 in Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, and Maine in 2003 (n=892,001). We applied ordinary least squares regression analysis to estimate annual expenditures attributable to each cancer after controlling for beneficiaries’ age, race/ethnicity, sex, and comorbid conditions, and state fixed effects. Cancers and comorbid conditions were identified on the basis of diagnosis codes on insurance claims. The most prevalent cancers were prostate (38.4 per 1,000 men) and breast (30.7 per 1,000 women). Dual eligibles with the study cancers had higher rates of other chronic conditions such as hypertension and arthritis than other beneficiaries. Total Medicare and Medicaid expenditures for dual eligibles with the study cancers ranged from $30,328 for those with lung cancer to$17,011 for those with breast cancer, compared with $10,664 for beneficiaries without the cancers. However, only 9$256 million ($314 million in 2012 dollars). Dual eligibles with these cancers also had high rates of other medical conditions. These comorbidities should be recognized, both in documenting cancer treatment costs and in developing programs and policies that promote timely cancer diagnosis and treatment

Medical Care Costs of Breast Cancer in Privately Insured Women Aged 18–44 Years

Breast cancer in women aged 18–44 years accounts for approximately 27,000 newly diagnosed cases and 3,000 deaths annually. When tumors are diagnosed, they are usually aggressive, resulting in expensive treatment costs. The purpose of this study is to estimate the prevalent medical costs attributable to breast cancer treatment among privately insured younger women

Mental and Physical Health-Related Quality of Life among U.S. Cancer Survivors: Population Estimates from the 2010 National Health Interview Survey

Despite extensive data on health-related quality of life (HRQOL) among cancer survivors, we do not yet have an estimate of the percent of survivors with poor mental and physical HRQOL compared to population norms. HRQOL population means for adult-onset cancer survivors of all ages and across the survivorship trajectory also have not been published

Open Source Antibiotics: Simple Diarylimidazoles Are Potent against Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is widely acknowledged as one of the most serious public health threats facing the world, yet the private sector finds it challenging to generate much-needed medicines. As an alternative discovery approach, a small array of diarylimidazoles was screened against the ESKAPE pathogens, and the results were made publicly available through the Open Source Antibiotics (OSA) consortium (https://github.com/opensourceantibiotics). Of the 18 compounds tested (at 32 μg/mL), 15 showed >90% growth inhibition activity against methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) alone. In the subsequent hit-to-lead optimization of this chemotype, 147 new heterocyclic compounds containing the diarylimidazole and other core motifs were synthesized and tested against MRSA, and their structure-activity relationships were identified. While potent, these compounds have moderate to high intrinsic clearance and some associated toxicity. The best overall balance of parameters was found with OSA_975, a compound with good potency, good solubility, and reduced intrinsic clearance in rat hepatocytes. We have progressed toward the knowledge of the molecular target of these phenotypically active compounds, with proteomic techniques suggesting TGFBR1 is potentially involved in the mechanism of action. Further development of these compounds toward antimicrobial medicines is available to anyone under the licensing terms of the project

Developing a research strategy to better understand, observe, and simulate urban atmospheric processes at kilometer to subkilometer scales

A Met Office/Natural Environment Research Council Joint Weather and Climate Research Programme workshop brought together 50 key international scientists from the UK and international community to formulate the key requirements for an Urban Meteorological Research strategy. The workshop was jointly organised by University of Reading and the Met Office

Improving the assessment of risk factors relevant to potential carcinogenicity of gene therapies: a consensus article

Regulators and industry are actively seeking improvements and alternatives to current models and approaches to evaluate potential carcinogenicity of gene therapies (GTs). A meeting of invited experts was organized by NC3Rs/UKEMS (London, March 2023) to discuss this topic. This article describes the consensus reached among delegates on the definition of vector genotoxicity, sources of uncertainty, suitable toxicological endpoints for genotoxic assessment of GTs, and future research needs. The collected recommendations should inform the further development of regulatory guidelines for the nonclinical toxicological assessment of GT products

The James Webb Space Telescope Mission

Twenty-six years ago a small committee report, building on earlier studies, expounded a compelling and poetic vision for the future of astronomy, calling for an infrared-optimized space telescope with an aperture of at least $4m$. With the support of their governments in the US, Europe, and Canada, 20,000 people realized that vision as the $6.5m$ James Webb Space Telescope. A generation of astronomers will celebrate their accomplishments for the life of the mission, potentially as long as 20 years, and beyond. This report and the scientific discoveries that follow are extended thank-you notes to the 20,000 team members. The telescope is working perfectly, with much better image quality than expected. In this and accompanying papers, we give a brief history, describe the observatory, outline its objectives and current observing program, and discuss the inventions and people who made it possible. We cite detailed reports on the design and the measured performance on orbit.Comment: Accepted by PASP for the special issue on The James Webb Space Telescope Overview, 29 pages, 4 figure