Your Hospital - UHSM

RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT
Study offers alternative breast cancer therapy
Prof Nigel Bundred
Researchers believe a hormone
therapy drug already used to treat
breast cancer can significantly
reduce its spread in women with a
particular type of the disease.
UHSM’s Professor Nigel Bundred,
working with colleagues at the
Christie and in Edinburgh and
Nottingham studied whether the
drug Exemestane (an aromatase
inhibitor class drug) halted the
growth of in-situ breast cancer and
potentially prevented it progressing
to invasive breast cancer by
spreading outside of the ducts of
the breast.
Ductal cancer in-situ (DCIS)
accounts for a quarter of all
screen-detected breast cancer.
Most patients with this type of
disease are treated with breast
conservation surgery followed
often by radiotherapy and/or
tamoxifen.
However, cancer can return
in as many as 30% of cases,
and approximately half of
all recurrences are invasive
(potentially spreading cancer).
Now, in a randomised trial
involving 90 women who were all
postmenopausal and diagnosed
as having oestrogen receptor
(ER) – positive DCIS, researchers
have found that Exemestane
was able to reduce DCIS growth
regardless of tumour size. The
results suggest that the drug is a
potential alternative to tamoxifen
in patients who have undergone
breast conservation.
Professor Nigel Bundred of the
Department of Academic Surgery
at UHSM says: “Breast cancer is
the most common form of cancer
in women, with around 40,000
new cases diagnosed in the UK
each year. About two-thirds of
cases involve tumours that express
oestrogen and/or progestogen,
which makes them susceptible to
hormonal therapy.
“Currently, the first line hormonal
therapy for women of all ages is
tamoxifen. We have found that
Exemestane has measured benefit
for women with this particular type
of cancer, while other studies show
tamoxifen offers either limited or
no benefit.”
New asthma prevention study gets underway
The largest ever study to
investigate whether its possible
to prevent children with hay fever
going on to develop asthma is now
underway at UHSM.
Researchers from
the North West
Lung Centre,
along with others
from centres
across the UK
and Europe, are
looking to recruit
600 children
between the
ages of 4 and 11
who have no asthma
symptoms, but who have
hay fever and need medication.
• Anyone
interested in taking
part in the study
should call 0800
6556553 for more
details.
The idea is to study the youngsters
to see if treatment with a
prescribed and approved hay fever
tablet, which contains natural grass
pollen, can also reduce the risk of
children with hay fever developing
asthma. For the first three years,
half the young recruits will be
given the tablet every day and
then followed for a further two
years to determine if the
treatment helps prevent
them developing
asthma. The other half
will be given a placebo
tablet.
Research Manager,
Gina Kerry, says:
“We know that
childhood allergic
hay fever increases the
risk of asthma development
in later life by up to seven-fold.
This trial will determine if this
hay fever treatment can prevent
development of asthma in children
with grass pollen allergy.
The North West Lung Centre where
researchers are looking into
asthma prevention
“We really need people to come
forward to take part in the trial as
soon as possible.”
• There will be a Health Matters
talk on asthma by UHSM’s Dr Rob
Niven on 16 June. See page 9 for
more details.
Medical Evaluation
Unit success story
The Medicines Evaluation Unit
Ltd (MEU) is a modern purpose
built respiratory clinical trial
facility based at
Wythenshawe Hospital.
It was set up by the late Dr
Steve Langley in 1994 and is
managed by Dr Dave Singh
(Medical Director), David
Rogers (Director of
Operations) and Liz Batty
(Head of Nursing).
Today the unit is viewed
as a success due to the
outstanding reputation for
performing high quality
clinical research. With over
15 years experience in this
field it is now a successful
and thriving contract
research organisation
(CRO) with clients such as
GlaksoSmithKline, Novartis,
AstraZeneca and others
extending around the globe.
The MEU is a joint venture
with UHSM and donates all
profits through its charitable
status to the North West
Lung Centre charity.
So far the unit has donated
£1.3 million to the North West
Lung Centre. This figure will
continue to rise, supporting
further respiratory academic
studies. This in turn helps
support respiratory research
within the NHS, setting high
standards and guaranteeing
future clinical trials to be
placed in this North West
based unit.
The MEU has extensive
experience from working
within the pharmaceutical
industry and has developed
many different compounds
for asthma and chronic
obstructive pulmonary
disease (COPD)
• Please see www.rewarding
research.org.uk for further
information.
Colouring the way we feel . . .
Prof Peter Whorwell
People with anxiety
and depression
are more likely
to use a shade of
grey to represent
their mental state
than blue, according
to UHSM’s Professor
Peter Whorwell and his
team of researchers from
the University of Manchester.
The researchers have created a wheel
of colors of various intensities as an
instrument to help diagnose depression
and anxiety. “Colours are frequently
used to describe emotions, such as
being ‘green with envy or ‘in the blues,’”
Prof Whorwell said.
The study, published in February in BMC
Medical Research Methodology, found
people with depression or anxiety were
more likely to associate their mood
with the colour grey, while happier
people preferred yellow. The results
could help doctors gauge the moods of
children and other patients who have
trouble communicating verbally.
“This is a way of measuring anxiety
and depression which gets away
from the use of language,” says
gastroenterologist Peter Whorwell.
“What is very interesting is that this
might actually be a better way of
capturing the patient’s mood.”
Colors are often used as metaphors for
moods, but no one had systematically
researched colour associations, Prof
Whorwell said. To investigate, he and
his colleagues developed the colour
wheel and then recruited 105 healthy
Researchers’ wheel helps
describe mood & depression
adults, 110 anxious adults and 108
depressed adults to the study. Each
person was asked to pick their favourite
colour, as well as the colour they were
most “drawn to” and a colour that
described their day-to-day
mood over the last several
months.
Regardless of
whether depressed,
anxious or healthy,
people liked blue
and yellow. But
when it came to
mood, the groups
diverged. Only 39
percent of healthy
people associated
their mood with a
colour at all. Of those
who did, yellow was the
most popular choice. Meanwhile,
about 30% of people with anxiety
picked a shade of grey, as did more
than half of depressed volunteers.
The researchers also found that when
assigning a mood to colors, saturation
matters. “A light blue is not associated
with a poor mood, but a dark blue
is,” Prof Whorwell said. “The shade
of colour is more important than the
colour itself.”
Prof Whorwell is now testing the
wheel on patients with irritable bowel
syndrome. He’s hoping that colour
choices can reveal patients’ attitudes
and predict how well they will respond
to treatments like hypnosis.
Because people are embarrassed by
gastroenterogical symptoms, Prof
Whorwell said, non-verbal methods
of getting information are sometimes
preferable to conversation.
And, he said, with additional research,
the wheel could be used in medical
fields from paediatrics to surgery.
• Prof Whorwell will be giving a
Health Matters talk on IBS on 21 April.
See page 9 for more details.
6 Your Hospital www.uhsm.nhs.uk
7