Lower back pain: the work of bacteria?

In the recent Global Burden of Disease study, lower back pain was ranked as one of the leading causes of disability in Australasia, second only to cancer. There has been immense interest and controversy surrounding the novel study which reported the effectiveness of antibiotic treatment for patients with low back pain. While some leading international spine surgeons believe that this work is worthy of a Nobel Prize, two commentaries in the BMJ have indicated that further research is needed before a change in medical practice.

NHMRC announces grant for statins therapy trial

Funding grants have just been announced, and Sophia Zoungas and the team in charge of the STAtins for Reducing Events in the Elderly (STAREE) trial are on the winners list. The trial will be the first randomised controlled trial of statin therapy in an apparently healthy elderly cohort living independently in the community and will be administered through the SPHPM. Earlier trials have shown the cardiovascular benefits to younger people with established CVD or at high risk of CVD no studies thus far have focused on the elderly.

Oral health disparities in Sri Lanka

Dental caries and poor oral health have been linked to socio-economic and ethnic differences among pre-schoolers in Sri-Lanka. Vajira Nanayakkara and colleagues from the DEPM has investigated the links between factors such as parental education levels, ethnicity and socio-economic strata and dental health in an attempt to identify the most at risk populations.

Depression, anxiety and their ties to early dementia or mild cognitive impairment.

Many people diagnosed with early dementia or mild cognitive impairment (MCI) often suffer from concomitant depression and anxiety disorders. In some cases these disorders may be related to difficulties adjusting to their diagnosis and associated cognitive problems. Successful adjustment and alleviation of depression and anxiety symptoms in these people is of critical importance for quality of life and may also help prevent, or delay, further cognitive decline.

Comparing rules-based exposure and case-by-case expert assessment

Lifetimes of chemical exposure can have profound influences on disease development and progression, but the way in which these exposure levels can be assessed varies. Expert case-by-case assessment is often used, but it is a time consuming and expensive prospect. The other option is a rule-based exposure assessment.

Deborah Glass of the DEPM has compared the efficiency of both types at assessing occupational exposure to noxious chemicals by using data from a case-control study of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukaemia in which parental occupational exposures were originally assigned by expert assessment.

 Deborah discovered that the rule-based approach appeared to be an efficient alternative to the expert assessment, and represented a new way to determine occupational exposures in a community based study.

Knowledge and decision making in prostate cancer care

Prostate cancer remains a very common cancer in men, yet relatively few men understand the implications associated with the diagnosis and subsequent treatment of prostate cancer. Men newly diagnosed with prostate cancer often lacked a basic understanding of the disease, with many survivors confirming their greatest unmet need was reliable knowledge of the disease.

Changing end of life care

Australians are living longer than ever, and as a consequence often experience a range of medical complications towards the ends of their lives. Current practices in end-of-life medical care require major change to ensure more Australians experience ‘better’ deaths, according to a panel of medical, ethical and legal experts.