Welsh patient power, Liquid biopsies, Food allergies, Dosing errors
Inside Health
BBC
4.4 • 575 Ratings
🗓️ 20 September 2016
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
A new medical movement in Wales is urging patients to take more control of the decisions about the care and treatment they receive. Called Choosing Wisely, it calls for a more equal doctor-patient relationship, an end to "doctor knows best". Dr Paul Myers, chair of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges in Wales discusses the initiative with Dr Mark Porter and with Inside Health contributor, Dr Margaret McCartney.
A new way of tracking cancer, through the blood, not from a biopsy of the tumour, is exciting oncologists worldwide. A liquid biopsy, a simple blood test, is proving to be a hugely promising development in cancer treatment. Circulating tumour DNA is measured in the blood, giving doctors the chance to target new treatments for the particular type of cancer. Dr Mark Porter talks to one of the pioneers in this field, Dr Nick Turner at The Royal Marsden Hospital and team leader at the Institute of Cancer Research about what liquid biopsies could, in the future, mean for cancer care.
Traditional advice to parents has been to delay the introduction of foods like peanuts and eggs when they wean their babies onto solid food, in order to reduce the risk of food allergies later in life. But conventional wisdom has been turned on its head with a new body of evidence suggesting the opposite is true. In a new survey of the latest data, the Director of Imperial College's Paediatric Research Unit, Dr Robert Boyle, tells Mark that the two most common childhood food allergies, to peanuts and eggs, may be prevented by introducing them early.
How accurate are parents when they're measuring out liquid medicine for their children? Not at all, according to a new study. Dr Margaret McCartney discusses the findings that 84% of the 2,000 or so volunteer parents made at least one error, and 20% made a big error. Scary stuff. But there's advice on how to avoid giving your sick child the wrong dose.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Greg Jenna and good news, Your Dead to Me is back for a new series. Here we go. Yes, we'll explore Emperor Nero's notorious reign with Professor Marybeard and Patton Oswald. I would not want my daughter having the remote control, not alone an empire. We'll dissect the decadent life of Philippe Duke-Dor-Leon with Tom Allen. I've often tried to pretend I'm an aristocrat and being very quickly knocked down. |
| 0:23.0 | And there'll be so much more with comedians like Olga Koch, Mike Mosniak and Rihalina. |
| 0:26.9 | I'm excited. |
| 0:27.6 | You're dead to me, the comedy podcast that takes history seriously. |
| 0:30.9 | Listen first on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:33.2 | Hello, and thank you for downloading this program, which was first broadcast on the 20th of September 2016. |
| 0:39.8 | Make sure you don't miss an episode by subscribing to the automatic podcast service, if you haven't already. |
| 0:45.5 | Details are on the Inside Health page of the BBC Radio 4 website. |
| 0:49.7 | Coming up in tonight's program, Liquid Biopsies, the new blood tests that can pick up telltale traces of |
| 0:55.4 | cancer and help find the best treatment. |
| 0:58.2 | Cancer's changed through treatment, and we can't keep repeatedly biopsying patients. |
| 1:03.9 | But why we're really excited about these liquid biopsies is we can repeat blood tests regularly |
| 1:10.8 | so we can actively follow what's happening |
| 1:13.9 | in the cancer as we treat it and make sure we're adjusting the treatment most appropriately. |
| 1:19.8 | And the latest research on food allergies, turning recent infant feeding practice on its head. |
| 1:26.2 | Food allergy wasn't really a common problem 30, 40 years ago. |
| 1:30.7 | And food allergy is now one of the commonest health conditions |
| 1:33.4 | in young people in developed countries, |
| 1:35.4 | and it's seen as a major public health problem. |
| 1:37.4 | So we're really studying it actively. |
| 1:39.4 | And this discovery that the way we feed babies |
| 1:42.3 | may influence whether you get through allergy or not, |
... |
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