people with lung cancer are dying after being diagnosed late in a&e because their gp missed signs of the disease despite often repeated visits, experts have revealed. as many as 56% of people in some parts of england who get lung cancer are only diagnosed when they visit a&e, according to a report by the uk lung cancer coalition. they are five times more likely to die within a year than those whose condition has been identified either by their gp or through the nhs cancer screening programme. family doctors often fail to diagnose cases of lung cancer until it is too late to treat effectively or miss them altogether, leading patients to seek help at a&e, the report says. more than a third of lung cancer patients see their gp three or more times before being referred for tests. that is a key factor in the uk’s poor record, in international terms, at diagnosing the disease early. lung cancer is the third commonest form of cancer in the uk and the biggest cancer killer, claiming 35,000 lives a year. “people diagnosed in a&e are dying as a result of delays in identifying their illness. late diagnosis makes lung cancer harder to treat and is a major reason why we have such poor survival in the uk,” said prof mick peake, chair of the coalition’s clinical advisory group. it is “a travesty” that admission to hospital as a medical emergency is the single commonest way the disease is diagnosed, added peake, who is also the clinical director of the centre for cancer outcomes at university college hospital london. gps’ failure to spot symptoms of lung cancer is only one reason for britain’s low rate of early diagnosis and high rate of lung cancer mortality, peake stressed. however, he added: “there is good evidence that there are missed opportunities for earlier diagnosis in primary care and we strongly urge gps to have a low threshold for doing a chest x-ray or ct scan in patients where there is any suspicion of lung cancer.” patients’ reluctance to have symptoms, such as a persistent cough, checked out can delay diagnosis too, especially those from poorer households and older people. nhs data cited by peake shows a postcode lottery in which tower hamlets in east london has the highest proportion of patients whose disease is diagnosed in a&e – 56.2% – closely followed by manchester 56.1% and leeds south and east 54%. more than 50% of patients are also diagnosed in a&e in salford, hull, south tyneside and sunderland. in contrast, only 14.7% of sufferers in guildford and waverley in surrey are diagnosed that way, with low rates also in wokingham in berkshire 15.7% and harrogate 16%. dr moira fraser-pearce, director of policy, campaigns and influence at macmillan cancer support, said that staff shortages in nhs cancer services and heavy workloads were exacerbating the complex reasons for the high level of diagnosis in a&e. macmillan has helped nhs england develop a new way of screening smokers and other high-risk patients for lung cancer by offering tests in trucks, often situated in supermarket car parks. the nhs did not comment directly on the findings but a spokesperson said that: “the nhs is catching more cancers earlier when they are easier to treat, resulting in record lung cancer survival rates.” targeted lung health checks in locations such as supermarket car parks will detect “thousands more cases of cancer that might not have been detected otherwise, saving even more lives”, they added. nhs england has pledged to diagnose three in four cases of cancer at an early stage by 2028. currently 57% of lung cancers are diagnosed late, greatly reducing chance of survival.
a team of scientists from canada have identified at least 13 strains of cannabis sativa they believe can aid in the prevention and treatment of covid-19. the president of the united states of america has spent the past few weeks touting a dangerous drug called hydroxychloroquine as a prophylactic treatment for covid-19. unfortunately, the president’s expertise is in reality tv, not medicine. several studies have shown that hydroxychloroquine, a drug designed to treat malaria, has dangerous side-effects when used to treat coronavirus, including death. the quest for a covid-19 drug that will both make donald trump and his friends in the pharmaceutical industry rich and not kill the people who take it has, so far, netted no results. but exciting government-sponsored research out of canada seems to indicate a different approach is in order. per the team’s research paper: “ we have developed over 800 new cannabis sativa lines and extracts and hypothesized that high-cbd c. sativa extracts may be used to modulate ace2 expression in covid-19 target tissues. screening c. sativa extracts using artificial human 3d models of oral, airway, and intestinal tissues, we identified 13 high cbd c. sativa extracts that modulate ace2 gene expression and ace2 protein levels. our initial data suggest that some c. sativa extract down-regulate serine protease tmprss2, another critical protein required for sars-cov2 entry into host cells. what this means is the team has carefully developed several cannabis strains that have been experimentally shown to make it significantly more difficult for the sars-cov2 coronavirus to find a home inside of the tissue cells it latches onto in order to infect us with the covid-19 disease. it does not mean you should run out to your local dispensary and exhaust their sativa and cbd supply. the 13 strains cultivated by the researchers are almost certainly very different from whatever wacky-named strains you’re going to purchase over the counter. but, if you must take an untested treatment, i recommend taking canada‘s lead and legally imbibing cannabis instead of listening to the trump administration. a recent study led by harvard medical school professor mandeep mehra which looked at data from more than 96,000 covid-19 patients, 15,000 of which had been treated with hydroxychloroquine, clearly showed that patients using the drug were at far greater risk for death than those who did not. per a report from the washington post: “ for those given hydroxychloroquine, there was a 34 percent increase in risk of mortality and a 137 percent increased risk of a serious heart arrhythmias. for those receiving hydroxychloroquine and an antibiotic — the cocktail endorsed by trump — there was a 45 percent increased risk of death and a 411 percent increased risk of serious heart arrhythmias. those given chloroquine had a 37 percent increased risk of death and a 256 percent increased risk of serious heart arrhythmias. for those taking chloroquine and an antibiotic, there was a 37 percent increased risk of death and a 301 percent increased risk of serious heart arrhythmias. donald trump recently told reporters and the us public that he’d been taking hydroxycholoroquine as a preventative measure to ward off covid-19. excepting the fact he has a small financial stake in plaquenil – the drug name for hydroxycholoroquine — if he really wants to prevent covid-19 he should imbibe cannabis. there’s no peer-reviewed evidence showing it’ll work, but at least it won’t kill him. not only has no one ever died from imbibing cannabis, it has clear medical benefits for the prevention and treatment of diseases ranging from viral infections to cancer. that, and he might be less of an asshole if he smoked a joint every now and again. for more information on the cannabis study, check out the full pre-print research paper here. and if you want to know more about why nobody should use hydroxycholorquine to prevent or treat covid-19, please read this important study.