Health briefing

A round-up of today's other stories in brief

Quitting best step for no smoking day

TOMORROW IS National No Smoking Day. The HSE says quitting is the best step smokers can take to improve their health. Pictured above is HSE worker Deirdre Coyne, who is trying to give up smoking, having her carbon monoxide levels measured by Dr Jose Ayala, HSE Health Promotion Office, yesterday. The National Smokers Quitline is Lo Call 1850-201203; see giveupsmoking.ie or access other smoking cessation services from HSE Health Promotion Departments, GPs and Primary Care Teams.

Hospital admissions cut by assessment units

PATIENTS ASSESSED in hospital Acute Medical Assessment Units (AMAUs) are less likely to require admission than those who are seen in emergency departments, new research has shown.

AMAUs have been established in many acute hospitals in the Republic as a method of dealing with extensive delays in emergency departments and unacceptable waiting times for patients.

Unlike emergency department referrals, family doctors make direct contact with staff in the AMAU before the patient is sent in for assessment. The Limerick unit operates for 12.5 hours a day on weekdays.

Dr Michael Watts and colleagues from the University of Limerick and the Mid Western Regional Hospital (MWRH) in Limerick analysed the subsequent destination of patients assessed at the hospital AMAU in a six-month period after it opened in July 2009.

The results, published in the Irish Medical Journal, show that 12.6 per cent of AMAU attendees were admitted to hospital compared with more than 43 per cent of patients who were assessed in the emergency department. Some 73 per cent of patients were entered onto outpatient pathways based on the diagnosis made in the assessment unit.

“We believe that direct communication with the referring GP at least partly explains the different outcomes of both groups as such communication can result in advice regarding treatment or in an appropriate outpatient alternative,” the authors note. “We believe the AMAU provides a medical ‘sieve’ for patients that might otherwise have been admitted to an inpatient bed.”

Tissue sample appeal to breast cancer patients

BREAST CANCER patients have been urged to donate tissue samples to a research programme which has the potential to help those with the most severe form of the disease.

The national clinical research programme for the treatment of breast cancer has collected 560 samples since it was launched last year. It is being run by the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI).

Almost 300 samples have come from regional centres in Cork, Waterford and Limerick, which are part-funded by Aviva, while the rest have come from the breast cancer clinic in Beaumont Hospital.

Dr Leonie Young, who heads up the Endocrine Oncology Research Group in the RCSI, said the research was already paying dividends and she appealed for more women to donate samples.

Researchers have identified biomarkers HOXC11 and S100beta, which indicate the most aggressive form of breast cancer and poorer outcomes for patients. Dr Young said the more tissue samples they receive, the better chance they have of improving clinical outcomes.

“Having availability of all those patient tissues, we can have a look and see in a wide cohort of patients if what we see in the lab holds true,” she said. “Our end goal would be to have a biomarker to put into a clinic in a realistic amount of time.”

The ultimate goal is to develop a simple breast cancer diagnostic test for all women. Such a test would identify early those women who are at risk of the most aggressive form of the disease and target them with appropriate forms of treatment.