The Article, Comment and long Editorial about the contraceptive pill and ovarian cancer dominates this week’s issue. The association of a protective effect for the contraceptive pill and ovarian cancer first emerged around 30 years ago, although what has not been clear is the duration of the protective effect once use of the pill ceases. A major piece of epidemiological research in this week’s issue is a reanalysis of 45 published studies from 21 countries involving over 100,000 women. The data are powerful, with the investigators showing how the contraceptive pill can protect women against ovarian cancer for up to 30 years after its use has been discontinued. In population terms the investigators estimate that 100,000 deaths from ovarian cancer have been prevented by pill use, and that over the next few years up to 30,000 ovarian cancer cases a year could be prevented.

In the long Editorial we take a strong line; taking all the evidence concerning contraceptive pill use and health outcomes, positive and negative, in relation to cancers and other health outcomes, we believe the total evidence shows how the pill has overall benefits to health, and should be made more widely available to women. Do you agree?

Less good news in the prevention of blood clots for people with atrial fibrillation. A research Article shows how idraparinux, which indirectly inhibits factor XA, is not a realistic alternative to warfarin as it, too, is associated with bleeding.

Last week we launched online the maternal and child undernutrition series, which continues in the print issue this week. Related to this is a research Article showing how, perhaps unsurprisingly, children given more formal education in Indonesia and Bangladesh are less likely to have children of their own who suffer from stunting. And while on the subject of the undernutrition series, a good piece of media coverage in The Economist, take a look at http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10566634

In a World Report, the UK has some of the lowest organ donor rates in Europe at just 13 donors per million people. But a raft of new measures, announced by the government last week, could boost the number of organ donations by 50% over the next 5 years, say experts.

And an intriguing title to this week’s Case Report: ‘Back pain from a burger’ - an interesting read and informative concerning bacteraemia associated with salmonella food poisoning.

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This entry was posted on Friday, January 25th, 2008 at 5:00 pm and is filed under The Lancet Digest. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can trackback from your own site.