Healthcare today
Healthcare across the world faces existential challenges: escalating demands against constrained resources, increasing co-morbidities and widening inequalities in health.
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Healthcare today posts, most recent first.
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Item new Peer-reviewed
Fine particulate matter shows no association with ovarian cancer across pooled cohorts
A systematic review of 145 studies of environmental chemical exposures and gynaecologic cancers found no pooled association between PM2.5 and ovarian cancer (HR 1.02 per 5 µg/m³, 95% CI 0.91–1.13) and only a marginal one for endometrial cancer (HR 1.02, 95% CI 0.99–1.05).
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Item confirms Preprint · not peer-reviewed
Socioeconomic advantage tracks slower biological ageing across 12 European countries
In SHARE, three Klemera-Doubal biological-age measures predicted functional limitation, cognition and mortality, and every indicator of socioeconomic advantage was associated with lower age acceleration, though the size of the gradient differed markedly between countries.
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Item new Peer-reviewed
Machine learning predicted six-month mortality after Taiwanese care-home admission
An ensemble machine learning model built only from routine intake assessments in 636 Taiwanese long-term care facilities predicted death within 180 days of first admission with an AUROC of 0.90 in a held-out 2024 cohort, where 28.7% of new residents died.
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Item new Preprint · not peer-reviewed
GLP-1 initiators lost 2.75 points more skeletal muscle on repeat whole-body MRI
Among 58 adults with diabetes in the German National Cohort who started a GLP-1 receptor agonist between two whole-body MRI examinations 4.6 years apart, skeletal muscle volume fell 2.75 percentage points more than in 130 matched unexposed controls.
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Item new Peer-reviewed
Biggest cardiometabolic treatment gaps are not where most risk could be averted
A pooled analysis of individual participant data from 76 countries found that the populations with the largest gaps in cardiometabolic treatment coverage were not those where treating the untreated would avert the most absolute cardiovascular risk, and that inequalities widened after diagnosis.
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Item refines Peer-reviewed
Diabetes was commoner in older US flu inpatient deaths than in COVID deaths
Among US inpatient decedents aged over 65, 46.6% of those dying of COVID-19 had diabetes compared with 63.1% of influenza decedents after age standardisation, indicating the widely cited diabetes share of COVID deaths was not distinctive to that virus.
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Item refines Peer-reviewed
GLP-1 pancreatic cancer hazard shifts with the comparator diabetes drug
In a TriNetX cohort of adults with type 2 diabetes, GLP-1 receptor agonist initiators had a lower hazard of pancreatic cancer than insulin users (HR 0.43), higher hazards than metformin, sulfonylurea, thiazolidinedione and DPP-4 users, and no difference against SGLT2 inhibitors.
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Item confirms Peer-reviewed
Lowering colorectal screening to 45 still misses much early-onset cancer, review finds
A systematic review of 45 studies found that colorectal neoplasia detection rates rise steeply with age across the under-50s, so screening from 45 captures the most yield, yet a considerable share of early-onset cases arise before 45 and fall outside eligibility.
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Item confirms Peer-reviewed
Cardiogenic shock deaths fall stepwise with hospital cardiac capability in US data
Across an estimated 1.18 million US cardiogenic shock hospitalisations from 2016 to 2022, crude in-hospital mortality fell from 64.4% at hospitals without percutaneous coronary intervention to 36.5% at transplant and LVAD centres, with the gradient persisting after adjustment.
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Item confirms Peer-reviewed
GLP-1 drugs cut weight by 6.7 kg in antipsychotic-treated patients in eight small trials
A meta-analysis of eight randomised trials in 664 patients taking antipsychotics found GLP-1 receptor agonists reduced body weight by 6.74 kg, BMI by 2.37 kg/m² and HbA1c by 0.61 percentage points, with semaglutide the largest effect and more gastrointestinal adverse events.
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Item new Peer-reviewed
Second primary lung cancers in Sweden have risen steadily since 1980
A Swedish national registry analysis covering 1961 to 2021 identified 853 second primary lung cancers, rising almost linearly from 1980, with a relative risk of 3.59 compared with first lung cancer and up to 20-fold after early-onset female adenocarcinoma.
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Item confirms Peer-reviewed
Lung screening invitations in Scotland drew a 24% response, lowest in deprived areas
Inviting people with a recorded smoking history from Scottish primary care records to a lung health check produced a 23.8% response across four health boards, lower in more deprived practices, and non-responders were more often current smokers (69.3% vs 49.8%).
