Publications by authors named "Samantha Crossfield"
Purpose: Assessing the long-term impact of cancer on people's lives is challenging due to confounding issues such as aging and comorbidities. We aimed to investigate this impact by comparing the outcomes of cancer survivors with a matched control cohort.
Methods: This was a cross-sectional survey of breast, colorectal and ovarian cancer survivors approximately 5 years post-diagnosis and a cohort of age, sex and social deprivation-matched controls who had never had a cancer diagnosis.
Article Synopsis
- The study aimed to identify risk factors (clinical, socio-demographic, and genetic) for severe COVID-19 outcomes like hospitalization or death in a sample of 9560 UK Biobank participants diagnosed in 2020.
- The research discovered that age, obesity, male sex, smoking habits, and living in deprived areas heightened the risk of severe illness, while an optimized polygenic risk score (PRS) highlighted genetic influences related to immune response pathways.
- The findings suggest that integrating genetic data with standard clinical and socio-demographic factors can enhance understanding of severe COVID-19 outcomes, especially before the vaccination era.
Introduction: More people are living with and beyond a cancer diagnosis. There is limited understanding of the long-term effects of cancer and cancer treatment on quality of life and personal and household finances when compared to people without cancer. In a separate protocol we have proposed to link de-identified data from electronic primary care and hospital records for a large population of cancer survivors and matched controls.
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- Linked healthcare data has significant potential for improving knowledge and services, but it raises ethical and legal issues around privacy and confidentiality that need to be addressed effectively.
- The research developed a clear data flow protocol to create pseudonymous and anonymous datasets, which was successfully implemented in the Comprehensive Patient Records study in Leeds, UK.
- The framework created not only received ethical approval but also provides a robust method that enhances current standards for data protection, ensuring compliance while facilitating research.
Objectives: To assess changes in ankylosing spondylitis (AS) incidence, prevalence and time to diagnosis, between 1998 and 2017.
Methods: Using UK GP data from the Clinical Practice Research Datalink, we identified patients diagnosed with AS between 1998 and 2017. We estimated the annual AS incidence, prevalence and length of time from first recorded symptom of back pain to rheumatology referral and diagnosis.
Objectives: To assess whether modern management of RA has reduced the prescription of oral corticosteroids and NSAIDs and to evaluate use of pharmacological prophylaxis strategies.
Methods: Using the Clinical Practice Research Datalink, we explored long-term (≥3/12 months; ≥6/12 in sub-analyses) DMARD, corticosteroid and NSAID prescribing (annually, in the year post-diagnosis and across the patient's life course to 15 years post-diagnosis), annual proportion with co-prescribing for prophylaxis of associated bone (corticosteroids, women only) and gastrointestinal (NSAIDs) comorbidity.
Results: Reported incidence of RA was 5.
Article Synopsis
- A systematic review was conducted to analyze the methods, results, and risk of bias in studies using electronic health records (EHR) to evaluate gout treatment.
- The review included 75 studies involving 1.9 million gout patients, revealing significant variation in how gout was defined, with 26 different case definitions and inconsistent medication reporting.
- The study concluded that the differences in definitions and reporting practices affect reported medication use and emphasized the need for improved assessment tools that account for EHR-related biases, along with sensitivity analyses on case definitions.