2015 / 16 60,600
2014 / 15 56,400
2013 / 14 47,700
This Week
PIC OF THE WEEK
QUOTES OF THE WEEK
AUSTRALIA Researchers from the University of Queensland milk venom from a lace monitor lizard( pictured) as part of a study that suggests the poison could work as an anticoagulant. Venom from 20 lizard species was tested over three years and the findings were published in the journal Toxins. The results showed that the venom could be effective in preventing clots.“ You can’ t predict where the next wonder drug is going to come from. It could come from something as unlikely as the Komodo dragon,” said study co-author Associate Professor Brian Fry.
Journal Talk
Michael Woodhead
SNAPSHOT
Source: AIHW, Radiotherapy in Australia 2015-16.
RADIOTHERAPY RATES More than 60,000 radiotherapy courses began in the last financial year, of which 2 % were part of emergency palliative care.
Radiotherapy courses started
2015 / 16 60,600
Supplement sector silent on glucosamine data
GLUCOSAMINE is still being spruiked by the supplement industry as the answer to stiff and painful joints in people with osteoarthritis, despite evidence showing that it’ s no better than placebo.
And with older Australians forking out up to $ 40 from their pension for a month’ s supply, you’ d think the vendors would have an obligation to show some proof of efficacy for this so-called building block of joint cartilage.
Not so, according to a group of Dutch researchers, who spent a fruitless 18 months trying to prise individual patient data from the tight grip of the glucosamine triallists.
Writing in the Annals of Rheumatic Disease, Dr Jos Runhaar and colleagues, from the department of general practice at Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam, say they embarked on their quest because they wanted to give glucosamine the benefit of the doubt. 1 Their aim was to challenge a 2010 BMJ meta-analysis of seven
2014 / 15 56,400
2013 / 14 47,700
high-quality trials that had concluded oral glucosamine was no better than placebo in reducing pain or joint space narrowing. 2 The Dutch researchers postulated there might have been hidden benefits of glucosamine among some subgroups of patients that were not apparent in smaller trials. They therefore set out to collate and analyse individual patient data from 21 clinical trials of glucosamine to look for these subgroup effects.
Despite repeated attempts to contact all of the glucosamine triallists, they were only able to obtain data from six of the 21 studies. In other words, two-thirds of the trial data were hidden from scrutiny. This was especially the case for industrysponsored studies.
Four trial organisers said they had been forbidden by the sponsor from releasing the data. The remainder either said they were not interested or never replied.
So much for‘ open access’. The reality is data transparency is still the exception
Most common reason
Breast cancer 47.2 %
Lung cancer 14.6 % rather than the rule— at least for complementary therapies.
“ Thus the full potential and use of completed clinical trials is not reached and only part of the clinical evidence is available to clinicians and patients, threatening the appropriateness of recommendations for clinical decision making,” the Dutch reviewers concluded.
Interestingly, well-known data transparency advocate Dr Ben Goldacre has just reported in the BMJ that 96 % of top pharma companies have now committed to making individual patient data from their clinical trials available on request( although their willingness to actually deliver varied considerably in practice). 3 Nevertheless, it looks like the supplements industry has something to learn on transparency from Big Pharma. 1. Annals of Rheumatic Diseases 2017; online. 2. BMJ 2010; 341: c4675. 3. BMJ 2017; online.
Intent
Prostate cancer 27 %
Lung cancer 10.8 %
• 58 % Curative
• 38 % Palliative( 2 % were started within 24 hours)
• 1.1 % Prophylactic
“ They are difficult to treat wounds and maggots do a good job.”
Griffith University’ s Frank Stadler says drones can deliver maggots to remote communities to treat diabetic ulcers.
“ It’ s hard to get an arsonist interested in the possibilities afforded by a fire hose.”
Stanford University addiction specialist Professor Keith
Humphreys comments on President Trump’ s refusal to declare a national emergency on opioid misuse.
“ Building the new medical centre is just not a matter of‘ build and they will come’, it’ s‘ build and they’ ll stay’.”
Mark Liebich, mayor of Weddin in NSW, says the local economy is losing
$ 13 million a year because people are travelling to other towns for medical services.
“ Luckily, the nurse manager at the school was proactive and called every one of those families, and they ended up with over 90 % of the kids vaccinated.”
Immunisation advocate Kate Fandry claims at one school in WA, one-quarter of families are failing to complete consent forms for teen MenW vaccination.
www. australiandoctor. com. au 18 August 2017 | Australian Doctor | 35