News Archive

Quoted As Saying

The West Australian

Winthrop Professor David Mackey, the new Managing Director of the Lions Eye Institute, is QAS both environmental and genetic factors appear to play a role in short and long sightedness. He was commenting on NSW research which found the amount of time spent outdoors protected people from becoming short-sighted.“So if someone is inside studying all the time then they won’t spend much time outdoors, so if we can identify children who might be at risk of that happening, we might be able to intervene and suggest that Johnny might need to be sent outside more often,” Professor Mackey said.

Michele Hansen, researcher in the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research, is QAS most babies born following assisted reproduction technology (ART) treatment are delivered healthy or with problems that can be easily treated but recent study findings support transferring only a single embryo at a time. A study headed by Ms Hansen found twins born as a result of IVF were more at risk of dying, being born preterm or having health problems in their first three years of life compared with naturally conceived twins.

Winthrop Professor Christobel Saunders, Deputy Head of the School of Surgery, is QAS that while the absolute benefit of mammograms to individual women is not great, the program has helped bring big improvements in the management of breast cancer. She was commenting on a US study which found fewer than 5 per cent of women with detectable breast cancers had their lives saved by regular mammograms. “Mammography is by no means the most accurate tool but we don’t have a lot better at the moment and it’s certainly far better than anything else available,” Professor Saunders said.

Australian Doctor

Mr Stan Wisniewski, Clinical Lecturer in the School of Surgery, is QAS the results of a new genetic test for prostate cancer, PCA3, should not be guiding treatment and there is a danger men might delay therapy because of the test. He was commenting on the fact the new test is being advertised directly to the public. “At the end of the day, the only scientific and validated way of knowing if you’ve got prostate cancer is to look at the histology, and if it’s there on the biopsy, you’ve got cancer,” he said.

Winthrop Professor of Gastroenterology John Olynyk, of the School of Medicine and Pharmacology, is QAS that diagnosing hereditary haemochromatosis has important implications for cancer screening as well as the prevention of iron overload. Speaking at the World Congress of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine in Sydney, he said the finding that patients who were homozygous for the C282Y genetic mutation had a threefold increased risk of colorectal cancer, and women with the mutation had a similarly raised risk of breast cancer, had implications for screening.

Adjunct Associate Professor Paul van Buynder, of the School of Population Health, is QAS GPs may be under-recognising the importance of influenza in children. He told a briefing convened by the Influenza Specialist Group in Sydney that in a trial of childhood flu vaccinations in WA last year, almost 20 per cent of children who were not immunised had seen their GP about having the jab but the doctor had not recommended it.

Clinical Associate Professor Ross Baker, of the School of Medicine and Pharmacology, is QAS while vitamin K is often not necessary, it still should be considered in patients where there is a real concern about bleeding. He was commenting on a study which suggested low-dose oral vitamin K was no better than placebo in reducing bleeding events in previously warfarinised patients with a high INR.“If someone has minor bleeding or bruising, they are on aspirin, have had previous gastrointestinal bleeding or their blood pressure is significantly [raised], that might trigger giving the vitamin K to reverse [the effects of warfarin],” Clinical Associate Professor Baker said.