Publications by authors named "Dobbs S"

Epidemiological and eradication trial evidence indicates that , a major causative factor in peptic ulcer and gastric cancer, is a driver of the hypokinesia of Parkinson's disease (PD). Psychological (cognitive impairment, depression and anxiety) and gastrointestinal (peptic ulceration and constipation) PD features can precede the symptomatic onset of motor features by decades. We hypothesise that the non- (NHPH), which have farm, companion and wild animals as their main hosts, can have a role in PD aetiopathogenesis.

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Objective: To determine the incidence of venous thromboembolism in patients with advanced epithelial ovarian cancer undergoing neoadjuvant chemotherapy in UK gynecological cancer centers. Secondary outcomes included incidence and timing of venous thromboembolism since cancer presentation, impact on cancer treatment, and mortality.

Methods: All UK gynecological cancer centers were invited to participate in this multi-center retrospective audit through the British Gynecological Cancer Society.

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Introduction: To investigate factors influencing survival in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma of unknown primary (HNSCCUP).

Methods: A retrospective observational cohort study was conducted, over 5 years from January 2015, in UK Head and Neck centres, of consecutive adults undergoing 18F-Fluorodeoxyglucose-PET-CT within 3 months of diagnosis with metastatic cervical squamous cell carcinoma. Patients treated as HNSCCUP underwent survival analysis, stratified by neck dissection and/or radiotherapy to the ipsilateral neck, and by HPV status.

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Research in vision science suggests that people possess a perceptual mechanism-ensemble perception-which enables them to rapidly identify the characteristics of groups (e.g., emotion, sex-ratio, race-ratio).

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Objective: Sudden hearing loss is a common presentation to ENT. In the authors' practice, patients often wait many weeks for formal hearing testing. This study aimed to assess whether a tablet-based hearing test, hearTest, could aid clinical decision-making within secondary care ENT.

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Objectives: Tonsillectomy is the most common operation performed by otolaryngologists in the UK, despite this we have a poor understanding of the post-operative recovery. We aimed to investigate post-operative bleeding and pain following paediatric tonsillectomy using a patient diary.

Design: Prospective observational cohort study.

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We question whether bradyphrenia, slowing of cognitive processing not explained by depression or a global cognitive assessment, is a nosological entity in idiopathic parkinsonism (IP). The time taken to break contact of an index finger with a touch-sensitive plate was measured, with and without a warning in the alerting signal as to which side the imperative would indicate, in 77 people diagnosed with IP and in 124 people without an IP diagnosis. The ability to utilise a warning, measured by the difference between log-transformed reaction times (unwarned minus warned), was termed 'cognitive efficiency'.

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Background: Deciding whether to transition to wound palliation is challenging for health care professionals because there is no agreed definition or understanding of palliative wound care, including the goals, core elements and differences from general wound management.

Objectives: To conduct a scoping review with qualitative synthesis to define palliative wound care in terms of its conceptual framework, goals, principles, components, and differences from general wound management, and provide a new definition of palliative wound care based on this scoping review.

Eligibility Criteria: Published literature that refers to the definitions, concept, goals and core elements of palliative wound care using any methodological approach, without any time limits, published in English.

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Background: This study aimed to assess the impact of multiple COVID-19 waves on UK gynaecological-oncology services.

Methods: An online survey was distributed to all UK-British-Gynaecological-Cancer-Society members during three COVID-19 waves from 2020 to2022.

Results: In total, 51 hospitals (including 32 cancer centres) responded to Survey 1, 42 hospitals (29 centres) to Survey 2, and 39 hospitals (30 centres) to Survey 3.

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Ovarian cancer survival in the UK lags behind comparable countries. Results from the ongoing National Ovarian Cancer Audit feasibility pilot (OCAFP) show that approximately 1 in 4 women with advanced ovarian cancer (Stage 2, 3, 4 and unstaged cancer) do not receive any anticancer treatment and only 51% in England receive international standard of care treatment, i.e.

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Background: Gut-brain axis is widely implicated in the pathophysiology of Parkinson's disease (PD). We take an integrated approach to considering the gut as a target for disease-modifying intervention, using continuous measurements of disease facets irrespective of diagnostic divide.

Methods: We characterised 77 participants with diagnosed-PD, 113 without, by dietary/exogenous substance intake, faecal metabolome, intestinal inflammation, serum cytokines/chemokines, clinical phenotype including colonic transit time.

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Purpose: To describe the development of a multidisciplinary anticoagulant safety taskforce (ASTF) to address anticoagulation-related issues across the medication-use system.

Summary: Oral and parenteral anticoagulants have been classified as high-alert medications because of their potential for harm. Errors at the point of prescribing, monitoring, and administering therapy have been noted in safety literature.

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Background: Providers of on-demand care, such as those in urgent care centers, may prescribe antibiotics unnecessarily because they fear receiving negative reviews on web-based platforms from unsatisfied patients-the so-called Yelp effect. This effect is hypothesized to be a significant driver of inappropriate antibiotic prescribing, which exacerbates antibiotic resistance.

Objective: In this study, we aimed to determine the frequency with which patients left negative reviews on web-based platforms after they expected to receive antibiotics in an urgent care setting but did not.

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Article Synopsis
  • Ovarian cancer remains a serious health issue, particularly for postmenopausal women; the UKCTOCS trial was initiated to evaluate if screening could lower mortality rates associated with the disease.
  • The study involved over 202,000 postmenopausal women who were randomly assigned to one of three groups: multimodal screening, transvaginal ultrasound screening, or no screening, and data was collected over a median follow-up period of 16.3 years.
  • Results showed that the detection rates of ovarian and tubal cancer were similar across all groups, indicating that neither type of screening significantly impacted the mortality from these cancers.
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Objective: Evidence for the management of acute otitis externa (AOE) is limited, with unclear diagnostic criteria and variably reported outcome measures that may not reflect key stakeholder priorities. We aimed to develop 1) a definition, 2) diagnostic criteria and 3) a core outcome set (COS) for AOE.

Study Design: COS development according to Core Outcome Measures in Effectiveness Trials (COMET) methodology and parallel consensus selection of diagnostic criteria/definition.

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Article Synopsis
  • Randomized trials for ovarian cancer screening haven't shown a reduction in mortality, but they provide useful data on screening effectiveness.
  • In the UKCTOCS trial, 44,799 women were screened annually with transvaginal ultrasound over nearly a decade, leading to 280,534 screenings and 960 surgeries from positive results.
  • Out of detected cancers, 37.5% of invasive epithelial cases were at Stage I/II, but the overall sensitivity of the ultrasound was low (68.5%) suggesting it may not be effective as a first line screening method in the general population.
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Background: Coronavirus disease 2019 imposed dramatic changes on ENT service delivery. Pre-pandemic, such changes would have been considered potentially unsafe. This study outlines the impact of lockdown on the incidence and management of ENT emergencies at a large UK centre.

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Mucoepidermoid carcinomas (MECs) are the most common malignant tumour of the salivary glands. MECs have also been reported to occur in atypical sites. Primary MECs of the thyroid gland are extremely rare, accounting for 0.

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Interest in an aetiopathogenic role for in neuropsychiatric diseases started with idiopathic parkinsonism (IP), where the cardinal signs can be assessed objectively. This systematic review, using an EMBASE database search, addresses Oxford Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine based questions on the inter-relationship of and IP, the benefits of eradicating in IP and the outcome of not treating. The search strategy was based on Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines: 21 of 204 articles met the inclusion criteria.

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Depression is associated with constipation within and outside Parkinson's disease (PD). Since inefficient cognitive-processing (bradyphrenia) features in PD and an enterokinetic agent improved cognitive performance in healthy individuals, bradyphrenia may be associated with constipation. We aim to define the archetypical bowel function of PD, and its association with cognition, mood, and motor features within and outside PD.

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has been implicated in the pathogenesis of Parkinson's disease (PD). Its eradication, in a randomized placebo-controlled trial, improved PD hypokinesia. species zoonosis might explain excess mortality from PD and non-Hodgkin lymphoma in livestock, but not arable, farmers.

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