NEWS
Funding secured for Leeds project to improve angina care
A project at the university of Leeds aiming to improve the investigation and management of patients with suspected angina has received a grant of almost £150,000 from national charity Heart Research UK.
Angina is chest pain usually caused
by coronary heart disease (CHD) which occurs when there is a narrowing of the heart arteries that supply the heart muscle with blood. In the UK, about 2 million people have angina and approximately 200,000 are referred to hospital each year for further tests. There are lots of different tests to investigate suspected angina but doctors have different opinions as to the best approach. This leads to wide practice variation, inefficiency of healthcare resources and may adversely impact on patient experience and outcomes. Recent NICE guidelines recommend a non-invasive CT angiogram for all patients with suspected typical or atypical angina. This approach does not recognise individual patient characteristics, risk factors or likelihood of them having disease, so can lead to over-estimation of disease severity in some patients. This can lead to further tests, including invasive x-ray angiograms and increased NHS costs, with no difference in patient outcomes.
This project, led by Professor John Greenwood, will carry out a UK multi-centre clinical trial, involving approximately 4,000 patients, to test the UK NICE guidelines compared to a personalised strategy of cardiac investigation. The personalised strategy will take account of individual
150% surge in skin cancer deaths since 1970s
patient risk factors and include current cardiac imaging tests widely available in the NHS. This trial will formally evaluate the UK NICE guidelines to see if they are optimal or whether they can be improved. This should reduce practice variation across the UK, lead to more robust guidelines and potentially reduce costs for the NHS Prof John Greenwood said: “This is an incredibly exciting project that we hope will make a real difference to how we identify and treat patients with angina. If we are successful, we may be able to drastically reduce unnecessary procedures, saving time and money and improving patient care. “This will not only help to improve their quality of life, but could ensure that patients receive care tailored to their condition, increasing its effectiveness and helping to reduce the strain on our health service. We are very grateful to Heart Research UK for supporting this research.”
According to figures released by Cancer Research UK, melanoma skin cancer deaths have been increasing dramatically in the UK, with the rate rising two and half times since the
1970s.The rise has been greater in men than women, with death rates in men more than three times higher now than they were in the 70s. This could be partly explained by the fact that incidence rates rose faster in men and they are more likely to be diagnosed at a later stage. 91% of melanoma patients in England are diagnosed at an early stage, and 91% will survive their disease for five years or more. But since the early 1990s, melanoma incidence rates have more than doubled in the UK – which may partly explain the surge in deaths. In the UK around 16,200 people are diagnosed each year with melanoma, making it the fifth most common cancer in the UK.
New EU requirements for reprocessing single-use devices
The European Council’s Common Specifications (CS), published 19 August, provide strict requirements for hospitals across the EU that experts agree will make it unlikely for hospitals to continue the practice of in-house reprocessing of single-use devices (SUDs). The CS goes into effect May 2021. The Association of Medical Device Reprocessors (AMDR), the global trade association representing regulated medical device reprocessing and remanufacturing companies, supports the CS. “The EU Commission has wisely followed a similar course to successful action taken by the US Food and Drug Administration over 20 year ago,” said Daniel J. Vukelich, president and CEO of AMDR. “The Common Specifications’ stringent requirements will make in-house reprocessing difficult
if not impossible. Hospitals in Europe can, however, safely use professional remanufactured SUDs from regulated remanufacturers, which will prevent millions of kilos of medical waste and lower the costs of devices.”
The EU Medical Device Regulation allows remanufacturing of SUDs if such devices meet all medical device manufacturing standards. AMDR members are working with Notified Bodies and have already received hundreds of CE marks for remanufactured devices. Member States opting-in to allow such products help promote a circular economy in healthcare, reducing reliance on a global supply chain by keeping devices and financial resources at home in Europe. “Through allowing reprocessing of
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single-use devices, hospitals across the EU will get an opportunity to help drive the circular economy and protect environment and public health by reducing the volume of the wastes they produce. The MDR ensures that remanufactured SUDs are just as safe and effective as new ones, and they are also better for the environment, reduce costs, and align with sustainability goals,” commented Dorota Napierska, chemicals policy and projects officer, from Health Care Without Harm (HCWH) Europe.
The new requirements expand the practice of safe and effective SUD remanufacturing and create an opportunity for EU countries to opt-in to regulated remanufacturing. Without opting-in, hospitals will have no choice but to increase waste and cost by using only original devices.
OCTOBER 2020
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