Author Interviews, JAMA, Mayo Clinic, Pancreatic, USPSTF / 14.08.2019
USPSTF Recommends Against Routine Pancreatic Cancer Screening for Asymptomatic Low-Risk Adults
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
[caption id="attachment_50834" align="alignleft" width="138"] Dr. Doubeni[/caption]
Dr. Chyke A. Doubeni, M.D., M.P.H.
Dr. Doubeni is a family physician and
The inaugural director of the Mayo Clinic Center for Health Equity and Community Engagement Research
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force uses systematic review of existing research to make recommendations on clinical preventive services that are delivered in primary care, with the goal to promote and improve health for all Americans. Although pancreatic cancer is an uncommon condition in the general population, it is often deadly.
Pancreatic cancer is now the third most common cause of cancer death in the United States, and could become the second leading cause if current trends continue. The vast majority of people with pancreatic cancer are diagnosed at a late stage and, unfortunately, even when caught early enough when surgery could be most effective, only a little over one-third of patients survive beyond five years.
Dr. Doubeni[/caption]
Dr. Chyke A. Doubeni, M.D., M.P.H.
Dr. Doubeni is a family physician and
The inaugural director of the Mayo Clinic Center for Health Equity and Community Engagement Research
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force uses systematic review of existing research to make recommendations on clinical preventive services that are delivered in primary care, with the goal to promote and improve health for all Americans. Although pancreatic cancer is an uncommon condition in the general population, it is often deadly.
Pancreatic cancer is now the third most common cause of cancer death in the United States, and could become the second leading cause if current trends continue. The vast majority of people with pancreatic cancer are diagnosed at a late stage and, unfortunately, even when caught early enough when surgery could be most effective, only a little over one-third of patients survive beyond five years.
Dr. Phelan[/caption]
Dermot Phelan, MD, PhD
Director of the Sports Cardiology Center
Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: It is well recognized that long-term elite endurance athletes are at higher risk of atrial fibrillation. We wished to evaluate whether this held true for primarily strength-type athletes. We had the opportunity to screen almost 500 former NFL athletes. It became clear that we were seeing more atrial fibrillation than one would expect during the screenings.
Dr. Wee[/caption]
Christina C. Wee, MD, MPH
Associate Professor of Medicine
Harvard Medical School
Director , Obesity Research Program Division of General Medicine
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC)
Associate Program Director, Internal Medicine Program, BIDMC
Deputy Editor of the Annals of Internal Medicine
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: New research is showing that for many people without diagnosed heart disease, the risk of bleeding may outweigh the benefits of taking a daily aspirin particularly in adults over 70 years of age. The American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology recently updated their guidelines and now explicitly recommend against aspirin use among those over the age of 70 who do not have existing heart disease or stroke.
Our study found that in 2017, a quarter of adults aged 40 years or older without cardiovascular disease – approximately 29 million people – reported taking daily aspirin for prevention of heart disease. Of these, some 6.6. million people did so without a physician's recommendation.
Frank Qian[/caption]
Frank Qian, MPH
Department of Nutrition
Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health
Boston, Massachusetts
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Plant-based diets have really grown in popularity in the last several years, particularly among the younger generation in the United States, many of whom are adopting a plant-based or vegetarian/vegan diet. However, the quality of such a diet can vary drastically. While many prior studies have demonstrated beneficial associations for risk of type 2 diabetes with healthful plant-based foods such as fruits, vegetables, nuts/seeds, whole grains, and legumes, the opposite is true for less healthful plant-based foods such as potatoes and refined grains such as white rice. In addition, some animal-based foods, such as dairy and fish, have shown protective associations against the development of type 2 diabetes, so strict vegetarian diets which exclude these foods may miss out on the potential benefits.
Given these divergent findings, we sought to pool all the available data from prior cohort studies to analyze whether the overall association of a diet which emphasizes plant-based foods (both healthful and unhealthful) are related to risk of type 2 diabetes.
