NEWS NEWS IN BRIEF


SCOTS PROMPTED TAKE CARE IN THE SUN


Cases of skin cancer in Scotland have increased by more than 30% in a decade, prompting calls for Scots to take more care in the sun.


Incidence of malignant melanoma rose by 30.3% from 2003 to 2013 according to the latest cancer statistics published by ISD Scotland this month.


This is the largest increase of the ten most common cancers in Scotland. There were 1,172 diagnoses of mela- noma in 2013, making it the 6th most common cancer in Scotland.


Maureen Watt, Minister for Public Health, says, “Most of Scotland has enjoyed beautiful sunshine at the start of spring, and thoughts are now starting to turn to the summer holidays. But these statistics show that unprotected exposure to the sun can be dangerous.


“Simple precautions like wearing a hat, covering up, and using a high- factor sunscreen, mean you can still enjoy the sun without putting your health at risk.


“Using sunbeds is also potentially unsafe, and is illegal for under-18s. Scotland was the fi rst country in the UK to introduce this age restriction, and for good reason.”


Across Scotland, lung, breast, bowel and prostate cancers continue to be the most common. The total number of cancers, excluding non-melanoma skin cancers which are rarely fatal, increased from 27,095 to 31,013 between 2003 and 2013. This trend is the same across the UK and much of Europe, and is mainly connected to an increasing elderly population.


Although more people are getting cancer, survival rates are increasing. There are around 176,000 people in Scotland who have been diagnosed with cancer over the past 20 years who are still alive.


Background: Cancer Incidence in Scotland (2013) can be viewed in full at www.isdscotland.org.


4 - SCOTTISH PHARMACIST


Data used to ‘name and shame’ GP practices should be scrapped


Criteria currently used to compare GP practices’ annual cancer diagnosis rates are misleading and should be replaced, according to fi ndings by researchers at the University of Aberdeen.


Most of the variation between practices’ urgent cancer referral fi gures can be explained by differences in the types of cancer being presented and not by poorer GP performance as is often reported, the research shows.


The authors conclude that more ‘appropriate and robust’ methods need to be developed to fairly compare GP practices on their performance in diagnosing cancer.


The study, published in the British Journal of Cancer, focused on data from more than 950,000 cancer cases from 8,303 general practices in NHS England over four years. It followed on from a medical student study which found similar results in more than 10,500 cancer cases from 77 general practices in NHS Grampian in Scotland.


Currently in England, fi gures comparing cancer detection rates between different GP practices are released annually and feature prominently in the media, usually


Pharmacy


students highlight treatments


Pharmacy students at Robert Gordon University (RGU) have highlighted the importance of swift action to help those who suffer a severe allergic reaction.


RGU’s Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) Student Chapter recently held an Anaphylaxis Event at the university’s Riverside East building.


Anaphylaxis is a severe, potentially life-threatening allergic reaction that can develop rapidly.


The event was organised to increase awareness of which prescription only medicines pharmacists are legally permitted to supply and administer without prescription in life saving situations.


Although the condition is life- threatening, deaths are rare. There are around 20 deaths in the UK each year. With prompt and proper treatment, most people make a full recovery.


Eva and Chris Bland with (Back row L to R) fellow pharmacy students Charlotte Rigden, Christine Filion-Murphy and Lara Seymour.


Students Eva (22) and Chris Bland (20), who are brother and sister and in fourth year and third year of Pharmacy at RGU respectively, gave a presentation to more than 50 attendees.


They both have a history of severe anaphylactic reactions and based their presentation from a patient perspective.


Eva said, “I’ve since had three occasions where I should have used my EpiPen, but have always been too scared to do it myself and have just gone straight to hospital.


“A doctor who treated me for anaphylaxis in Holland while on


holiday recommended I take two antihistamines and an anti-sickness pill at the start of any reaction to try and combat this.”


Third year student Christine Filion- Murphy is President of the IHI and helped to organise the event, the fi rst student-led session of its kind at RGU.


She said, “The idea for the event was developed by our colleague Kirsty Regan after what happened two years ago in Ireland where a girl was refused an EpiPen from a Pharmacy and died outside it. We are keen to highlight that in an emergency pharmacists are allowed to give out EpiPens.”


suggesting there is a “post code lottery” when it comes to diagnosis . The current research shows this is almost certainly not true.


“There are a number of reasons why comparing GP practices using the current criteria is not appropriate,” said paper lead author Dr Peter Murchie, a Senior Lecturer in Primary Care from the University of Aberdeen.


“Current reporting is based on referral data from a single year. An average sized GP practice of 6,000 patients and four GPs will have less than 30 new cancer cases each year, which is actually a small number for making such big comparisons. More importantly, the current method has a major fl aw because it assumes that all cancers are equally easy or diffi cult to diagnose. We know this isn’t the case: some cancers can be straightforward to diagnose – for instance a woman with a typical breast cancer lump - while others are much more diffi cult, such as when symptoms are vague or initial tests are normal.”


The study examined year-to-year variation for practices and found that how a practice performed in referring suspected cancer one year had little infl uence on how it performed in the next. The researchers then examined what happened when several years of data were pooled together. Finally they used national data on differences between cancers to examine how likely it was that a GP practice which was reported as being in the bottom ten percent of practices was there due to having more diffi cult cases, rather than because of poor performance.


Dr Murchie suggested that there are ways that future reporting could be improved. “We suggest greater emphasis on whether cases of suspected cancer were referred according to guidelines or not. While this would still need data pooled over several years for most practices, it would reduce the element of chance before publicly reporting GPs performance.”


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