The healthcare cost of multimorbidity in people with mental health diagnoses in Denmark

Denmark,Flag,On,The,Coin,With,Heap,Of,Danish,Kroner

Kitty Saunders and Silke Vereeken explore the individual and population level healthcare costs of multimorbidities in people with at least one mental health diagnosis in Denmark.

[read the full story...]

Does a diagnosis of severe physical illness elevate suicide risk?

Light,At,The,End,Of,The,Tunnel,Vector,Concept.,Symbol

Dona Matthews reviews a retrospective cohort study of 47 million people exploring the risk of suicide after diagnosis of severe physical illness, such as low-survival cancers, chronic ischaemic heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and degenerative neurological conditions such as Huntington’s disease.

[read the full story...]

Oral mucositis: Risk factors in paediatric oncology patients

The authors suggest a number of factors that may lead to increased prevalence, including depression, childhood trauma, low self-esteem and genetic risk.

Manas Dave takes a look at this review aiming to identify the potential risk factors associated with the development of oral mucositis in paediatric patients. While a range of risk factos are higlighted it is worth noting that 80-100% of all children having chemotherapy experience some degree of mucositis.

[read the full story...]

Can psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy relieve existential crises in cancer patients?

sharon-mccutcheon-iNlgy1WkfJA-unsplash

Pascal Immanuel Michael reviews a randomised controlled trial examining long-term outcomes of psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy for existential distress in patients with cancer.

[read the full story...]

Is there a causal link between mental health problems and risk of COVID-19 infection?

s-b-vonlanthen-135ys6lOTOM-unsplash

In his debut blog, Andrew Steptoe summarises two recent papers using electronic health record datasets, which suggest that having a psychiatric diagnosis may put people at risk of COVID-19 infection.

[read the full story...]

Metastasis to the oral and maxillofacial region

Metastasis_illustration

This review of metastasis to the oral and maxillofacial region included 217 studies (190 case reports,24 case series ). Metastasis were uncommon, but identified from 29 primary sites, the most common sites being lung the lungs (20.97%), breast (12.06%) and kidney (11.78%).

[read the full story...]

Weekly singing in choir may improve the mental health of cancer carers

shutterstock_451314649

Katherine Tallent writes her debut blog on a recent longitudinal controlled study exploring psychosocial singing interventions for the mental health and well-being of family carers of patients with cancer.

[read the full story...]

Cancer screening disparities in people with mental illness

national-cancer-institute-L7en7Lb-Ovc-unsplash

Emily Peckham from the Closing The Gap Network writes her debut blog on a new systematic review, which finds that people with mental illnesses were less likely to receive screening for cancer compared to the general population.

[read the full story...]

Oral Cancer: Elective neck dissection or watch and wait?

Bariatric surgery and marked weight loss is likely to improve knee complaints but there is a need for high quality studies

There is an ongoing debate about the management of patients with oral cavity squamous cell carcinoma and clinically negative cervical lymph nodes. Some clinicians favour preventive elective neck dissection (END) which although is linked with favourable survival has an adverse effect on quality of life while others adopt a wait and watch policy. The aim [read the full story…]

Oral mucositis in cancer patients: the effect of oral supplementation

shutterstock_74662099 zinc

This review of of the effects of oral supplementation on the prevention and/or treatment of oral mucositis in patients with cancer undergoing chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy included 12 RCTs and suggest that Zinc supplements may be beneficial.

[read the full story...]