Delivering brief physical activity interventions in primary care: a systematic review.

Background: Physical activity (PA) brief interventions (BIs) involving screening and/or advice are recommended in primary care but frequency of delivery is unknown.

Aim: To examine the extent to which PA BIs are delivered in primary care, and explore factors associated with delivery, receipt, and patient receptivity.

Design And Setting: A mixed-methods systematic review of studies conducted worldwide, with a narrative synthesis of results.

Use of Primary Care Data in Research and Pharmacovigilance: Eight Scenarios Where Prescription Data are Absent.

The use of primary care databases has been integral in pharmacoepidemiological studies and pharmacovigilance. Primary care databases derive from electronic health records and offer a comprehensive description of aggregate patient data, from demography to medication history, and good sample sizes. Studies using these databases improve our understanding of prescribing characteristics and associated risk factors to facilitate better patient care, but there are limitations.

Uncoded chronic kidney disease in primary care: a cross-sectional study of inequalities and cardiovascular disease risk management.

Background: Uncoded chronic kidney disease (CKD) is associated with poorer quality of care.

Aim: To ascertain the proportion and determinants of CKD, which have not been formally recorded (Read coded), and identify differences in management and quality-of-care measures for patients with coded and uncoded CKD.

Design And Setting: Cross-sectional survey undertaken in an ethnically diverse adult population using primary care electronic health records (EHRs) from GP clinics in Lambeth, South London, UK.

Is symptom-based diagnosis of lung cancer possible? A systematic review and meta-analysis of symptomatic lung cancer prior to diagnosis for comparison with real-time data from routine general practice.

Background: Lung cancer is a good example of the potential benefit of symptom-based diagnosis, as it is the commonest cancer worldwide, with the highest mortality from late diagnosis and poor symptom recognition. The diagnosis and risk assessment tools currently available have been shown to require further validation. In this study, we determine the symptoms associated with lung cancer prior to diagnosis and demonstrate that by separating prior risk based on factors such as smoking history and age, from presenting symptoms and combining them at the individual patient level, we can make greater use of this knowledge to create a practical framework for the symptomatic diagnosis of individual patients presenting in primary care.

Endothelial cell processing and alternatively spliced transcripts of factor VIII: potential implications for coagulation cascades and pulmonary hypertension.

Background: Coagulation factor VIII (FVIII) deficiency leads to haemophilia A. Conversely, elevated plasma levels are a strong predictor of recurrent venous thromboemboli and pulmonary hypertension phenotypes in which in situ thromboses are implicated. Extrahepatic sources of plasma FVIII are implicated, but have remained elusive.