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Early Fitness Linked to Healthier Arteries

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People with good physical fitness in their 30s and 50s have more elastic arteries later in life. This is shown in a new study from Karolinska Institutet, published in the journal Scientific Reports. The association remains regardless of cholesterol levels and other risk factors.

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death worldwide. One early sign of increased risk is stiffening of the arteries, which can contribute to heart attack and stroke. In the present study, researchers investigated whether physical fitness earlier in life can predict how elastic the blood vessels are in older age.

The study is based on data from the Swedish longitudinal study SPAF‑1958, led by Maria Westerståhl, senior lecturer at the Department of Laboratory Medicine, where 425 individuals were followed across adulthood. Participants were examined at ages 34, 52, and 63. The researchers assessed fitness using a cycle ergometer test, analysed blood samples to study lipids, and measured arterial stiffness at age 63 using a non-invasive method.

Fitness more important than blood lipids

The results show that individuals with higher fitness at ages 34 and 52 had more elastic arteries at age 63. The association remained even after accounting for factors such as blood pressure, body weight, smoking, and cholesterol levels. However, neither cholesterol nor more advanced measures of so-called “good” HDL cholesterol could predict arterial stiffness.

“Our findings show that good physical fitness early in life is linked to vascular health later in life, independently of traditional risk factors,” says Andrea Tryfonos, postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Laboratory Medicine, Karolinska Institutet.

According to the researchers, the results suggest that regular physical activity may have long-term effects on cardiovascular health that are not captured by blood lipids and other common risk markers alone.

“This highlights the importance of maintaining good fitness from early adulthood to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease,” says Andrea Tryfonos.

Next step

The researchers are now planning a follow-up of the participants at age 68 to investigate how changes in fitness over time affect vascular health later in life.

The study was conducted in collaboration with the division of clinical physiology and the division of clinical chemistry at the department of laboratory medicine, as well as Karolinska University Hospital in Huddinge. Information on funding and potential conflicts of interest is not available in the provided material.

Source: Karolinska Institutet

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Gene Analysis Predicts Breast Cancer Response to Chemotherapy

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A new study from Karolinska Institutet shows that gene analysis of breast cancer tumours can identify patients who do not benefit from chemotherapy given before surgery. The findings, published in the journal Nature Communications, could in the long term contribute to more personalised treatment.

The study included 179 patients with hormone dependent, HER2 negative breast cancer who took part in the Swedish PREDIX LumB trial. Before surgery, all patients received both treatments, but in different sequences. They were given either chemotherapy followed by hormone blocking therapy together with the drug palbociclib, which slows the division of cancer cells, or the reverse sequence.

When the researchers analysed the results, they found that the treatments led to similar reductions in tumour size overall. Survival was also similar regardless of whether treatment started with chemotherapy or with palbociclib and hormone blocking therapy.

Not all tumours responded

At the same time, the analyses showed that there was a subgroup of tumours with a poorer response to chemotherapy but a better response to palbociclib in combination with hormone‑blocking therapy.

To understand why some tumours did not respond to chemotherapy, the researchers analysed tumour gene expression, how active different genes are in the tumour, in tissue samples taken before treatment started. Based on these analyses, they developed a model called CDKPredX, which can identify tumours that respond poorly to chemotherapy but better to palbociclib combined with hormone blocking therapy.

“Today, we lack reliable ways to determine in advance which patients will actually benefit from chemotherapy before surgery. Our results show that tumour gene expression can provide important information in this respect,” says first author Alexios Matikas, docent at the Department of Oncology‑Pathology, Karolinska Institutet. 

The model is based on patterns of gene expression in the tumour, including genes involved in cell division, hormone signalling and the immune system. When the researchers tested the model in other patient groups, they observed similar patterns.

Further studies are needed

“In the longer term, this type of analysis could help patients avoid treatments that do not benefit them, such as chemotherapy, and instead receive treatment that has a better chance of working. At the same time, further studies are needed before the method can be used in clinical practice,” says senior author Theodoros Foukakis, professor at the same department. 

The researchers emphasise that the study is exploratory and that the genetic analysis is not yet ready for clinical use. Nevertheless, the results provide new insights into why different tumours respond differently to treatment.

Source: Karolinska Institutet

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SAMED Calls for Urgent Action as Gauteng Health Supplier Debt Crisis Reaches Critical Point

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The South African Medical Technology Industry Association (SAMED) has called for urgent and measurable action to resolve the escalating supplier debt crisis within Gauteng’s public health system, warning that continued delays in payments and procurement failures are placing both healthcare delivery and supplier sustainability at serious risk.

The call comes ahead of the Gauteng Department of Health’s hospital-level engagements with suppliers on 27 May, following MEC for Health and Wellness Faith Mazibuko’s recent acknowledgement that approximately R8 billion is owed to suppliers.

SAMED’s latest member data shows that R245 517 666.12 is owed to 27 medical technology suppliers, with a significant portion overdue well beyond the public sector’s 30-day payment requirement. Many affected suppliers are South African SMEs now operating under severe financial strain, forced to absorb the consequences of systemic procurement and payment failures while continuing to supply essential medical devices, diagnostics, consumables, and other critical technologies needed for patient care.

While SAMED welcomes the Department’s willingness to engage directly with suppliers, the association stresses that these discussions must lead to concrete commitments and operational action.

For SAMED and its members, this crisis is not new.

The association has spent more than a decade raising concerns about systemic procurement dysfunction, delayed payments, weak supply chain controls, and administrative failures that continue to undermine the effective functioning of the public healthcare system.

Today, those longstanding failures have evolved into a critical risk for both the healthcare sector and the businesses that support it.

In some cases, suppliers are delivering urgently needed products to hospitals while administrative bottlenecks make timely payment structurally impossible. This is particularly acute where delayed purchase orders, including for consignment stock arrangements, create a mismatch between supply delivery and budget allocation.

Monica Lucas, SAMED Board Member said, “SAMED members have continued supporting public healthcare under extraordinary financial strain because patient care cannot simply pause. But suppliers cannot indefinitely act as the financiers of a dysfunctional system. This is no longer just a debt issue; it is a structural operational failure that requires urgent executive intervention.”

Following the Department’s engagement with service providers on 23 May, SAMED has formally written to MEC Mazibuko requesting greater transparency on the Department’s debt reduction plans, and stronger accountability across finance, supply chain management, and hospital leadership.

SAMED will participate constructively in the upcoming hospital engagements and remains committed to finding practical solutions in partnership with government.

However, the association cautions that engagement without accountability will not restore supplier confidence.

After years of repeated commitments and limited progress, the sector requires clear timelines, written commitments, and measurable implementation.

“Direct engagement with leadership is welcome, but suppliers need more than reassurance. We need transparency, accountability, and a credible plan to resolve both the immediate debt burden and the underlying operational failures that continue to create it. Without that, the risks to healthcare continuity will only deepen.” – Scott de Oliveira, SAMED Chairperson

SAMED is calling for immediate action, including:

  • Publication of a verified and transparent debt position
  • A time-bound repayment plan for outstanding supplier debt
  • Executive oversight of hospital procurement and payment failures
  • Improved responsiveness from finance and supply chain leadership
  • Structured follow-up engagements with measurable progress reporting

SAMED remains committed to constructive engagement but warns that the public healthcare system cannot continue relying on suppliers to absorb systemic dysfunction indefinitely.

This week’s engagements must mark the beginning of real corrective action, not another cycle of discussion.

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Whole Blood and Components Equally Effective in Prehospital Trauma Care

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Giving whole blood or the component parts of blood are equally effective options for paramedics and emergency medical technicians to use in treating patients with severe, traumatic bleeding before arriving at the hospital, according to a large, nationwide trial directed by University of Pittsburgh and UPMC clinicians and scientists.  

The results, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, provide flexibility to prehospital emergency care providers and could increase the odds that traumatically injured patients receive blood as soon as possible.  

“Traumatic bleeding is the leading cause of trauma death and is the most time-sensitive injury a person could suffer æ more time sensitive than a stroke or heart attack,” said co-lead author Jason Sperry,  professor of surgery in Pitt’s School of Medicine, and chief of trauma surgery at UPMC. “But it is preventable – and that starts with giving blood back to the injured person before they even arrive at the hospital.”  

Donated blood is usually separated into parts – red cells, plasma and platelets – for storage and so the parts can be used individually as needed. When someone is bleeding, emergency clinicians will often give all or some of these parts to the patient at once. Giving either whole blood or its component parts had long been considered safe options. 

But which is better for treating severe bleeding: Giving never-separated whole blood or giving the components? The answer matters for blood bank and emergency care logistics.  

Sperry and fellow principal investigators Francis Guyette, professor of emergency medicine in Pitt’s School of Medicine, and Stephen Wisniewski, professor of epidemiology and associate vice chancellor for clinical trials coordination at Pitt, launched the “Type O Whole Blood and Assessment of Age During Prehospital Resuscitation (TOWAR) Trial” to find out.  

The multicentre trial, which ran from May 2022 to June 2025, enrolled and included 1020 severely bleeding patients who were transferred to a trauma centre by medical helicopter. The patients were randomised 2-to-1 to receive either whole blood or blood components.   

The research team found no statistically significant difference between the two study arms. In both cases about a fifth to a quarter of the patients died within 30 days, compared to a third of traumatically bleeding patients who do not receive blood before arriving at the hospital. 

“This is good news,” said co-lead author Guyette, who is also medical director of STAT MedEvac, which is directed by a consortium of UPMC hospitals and is the nation’s largest academic, nonprofit critical care transport group. “It means that emergency responders can use whatever form of blood is most accessible to them. In U.S. civilian emergencies that may be component blood because that is how most blood banks package it, but in military settings whole blood is often all that is available. We’ve shown that both are equally great options.” 

In March, a European group announced the results of a similar, slightly smaller trial conducted in England, also published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Like the Pittsburgh team, they also found that giving whole blood or blood components was equally effective. The clinician-researchers believe that the combined findings will be reflected in guidelines set by various societies that oversee trauma care, surgery and blood handling.  

Whole blood is good for 21 days after donation, so the clinician-scientists were also curious if patient outcomes were any different if they were given new blood or blood closer to the expiration date. They learned that it made no difference—outcomes were the same for patients receiving newer blood within 14 days of donation compared to those receiving older blood within seven days of expiration. 

“Our thoughtful approach to the study design allowed us to not only answer the important question of the efficacy of whole blood compared to component therapy, but also to evaluate the health impact of an important public health question, the age of whole blood,” said senior author Wisniewski, who is also codirector of the Epidemiology Data Center at Pitt’s School of Public Health. “Our trial provides reassurance by verifying current standards that support the use of whole blood units throughout their entire shelf life.” 

The team also noted that the findings wouldn’t have been possible without the generosity of blood donors, study participants agreeing to share their data and the hard work of emergency care providers.  

“We’re very grateful to everyone involved, particularly the paramedics, emergency medical technicians and flight nurses,” Guyette said. “We are hopeful that this study and future research will give them better tools to save lives.” 

Source: University of Pittsburgh

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New ‘Quantum Glass’ Improves X-ray Resolution with Less Radiation

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A glass screen that moulds to the patient could allow more comfortable mammograms

The inside of this memory card (left) is viewed in an X-ray image (right) captured with a new resolution-boosting glass screen. Credit: Adapted from ACS Energy Letters 2026, DOI: 10.1021/acsenergylett.6c00958

X-rays allow professionals to diagnose injuries or ailments and peer inside suitcases at the airport, along with a variety of other applications. A team reporting in ACS Energy Letters has improved the glass screen that “translates” between X-rays and visible light, creating an X-ray system that produces high-resolution images with less radiation – it even works underwater. The screen can be moulded into curved shapes, a feature that could one day lead to more comfortable mammograms. 

“Because our glass screens are highly efficient at converting X-rays into visible light, they can capture diagnostic images using less radiation.”

Osman Bakr. corresponding author of the paper

A screen made of glass, called a scintillator, catches X-rays that pass through an object and converts them into flashes of visible light, explains Osman Bakr, one of the paper’s corresponding authors. “The more efficient the scintillator is at this conversion, the clearer the final digital image becomes and the lower the dose of radiation required to create it,” he adds. 

To improve the efficiency of glass-based scintillators, Bakr, Mehmet Bayindir and colleagues combined nanoclusters of copper, iodine, and an organic ligand into the glass. Then they formed their new glass into screens and captured X-ray images of a memory card and a bug, revealing intricate details within. 

“By designing these materials from the bottom up, we’ve created a ‘quantum glass’ that occupies the perfect sweet spot between molecules and nanocrystals,” explains Bayindir. Bashir Hasanov, the first author of this study, adds that “this allows the screen to be as moldable as plastic while maintaining the high-performance imaging capabilities of a rigid crystal, opening a new frontier for three-dimensional X-ray diagnostics using curved surfaces.” 

The presence of water typically makes X-ray imaging extremely challenging. However, the new, highly efficient scintillator captured a very clear scan of a fish’s tail in water. In fact, the image was indistinguishable from an image taken in air. 

Another property of the new nanocluster glass is that when heated to 42 degrees Celsius, it becomes almost rubbery, allowing the researchers to form a curved screen. This could allow future researchers to create X-ray imaging systems that curve to fit a person’s anatomy – a major drawback of current mammography machines, which require breast tissue to be compressed between flat panels for a proper scan. 

“We hope to mitigate the physical discomfort of life-saving screenings like mammography, encouraging more consistent patient participation,” says Bakr. “Because our glass screens are highly efficient at converting X-rays into visible light, they can capture diagnostic images using less radiation.” The researchers anticipate that the advances in this work could pave the way for safer, more frequent screenings that can start earlier, helping to catch cancer at an earlier stage.

Source: EurekAlert!

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Calcium and Vitamin D Supplements Offer Little to No Meaningful Benefit on Fracture and Fall Prevention

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Recommendations for calcium and vitamin D supplementation should be re-evaluated, suggest researchers

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Calcium, vitamin D, or combined supplements offer little to no clinically meaningful benefit on fracture and fall prevention in most older people, finds an in-depth review of the latest evidence published by The BMJ.

Almost a third of people aged 65 and older fall each year, often resulting in fractures, which are linked to pain, reduced quality of life, and the need for residential care. Preventing falls and fractures is therefore a global public health priority.

Several previous evidence reviews have found no reduction in fractures with either calcium or vitamin D supplements and results are inconsistent for combined use. The benefit of vitamin D on falls also remains unclear.

Yet despite this, many clinicians, guidelines, and regulatory agencies recommend vitamin D supplements (with or without calcium) for bone health, and prescriptions have increased substantially in recent years.

To address this uncertainty, researchers in Canada reviewed the results of 69 randomised controlled trials involving 153,902 adults that assessed the effect of calcium or vitamin D supplements – or a combination of both – on reducing the number of fractures and falls compared with placebo or no treatment.

The trials were of varying quality, but the researchers were able to assess their risk of bias and certainty of evidence using established tools.

After agreeing on clinically meaningful thresholds, the researchers found little to no effect for experiencing any fracture from use of calcium supplements (moderate certainty evidence from 11 trials; 9,067 participants), vitamin D supplements (high certainty evidence from 36 trials; 92 045 participants), or combined supplementation (high certainty evidence from 15 trials; 51 126 participants).

Calcium, vitamin D, or combined supplementation also appeared to have little to no effect on specific fractures, such as hip fractures, or falls, based largely on moderate to high certainty of evidence.

The researchers acknowledge that some analyses included a small number of trials and participants, so these findings should be interpreted with caution, and results may not apply to individuals with specific bone disorders or to those receiving drug treatment for osteoporosis.

However, the findings were consistent after further analyses to account for differences such as participant age, sex, history of fractures and falls, and average dietary calcium intake, supporting the strength of their conclusions.

As such, they say these findings “do not support routine supplementation with calcium or vitamin D, or combined supplementation to prevent fractures and falls” and they suggest clinicians, guideline panels, and regulatory agencies “should re-evaluate their general recommendations for calcium and vitamin D supplementation in light of current evidence.”

Evidence from rigorous and well-powered trials is needed to inform recommendations for supplementation in higher-risk groups, say researchers in a linked editorial.

In the meantime, they suggest that focus and funding should be redirected towards interventions that have been shown to offer meaningful prevention of falls and falls related injuries, such as balance and resistance exercise, and interventions that combine elements like exercise, hazard assessment or education, tailored to individual risk.

Source: The BMJ Group

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One‑week Radiotherapy Course Effective for Early‑stage Breast Cancer

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New UK research has found that a one-week course of post-surgery radiotherapy is just as safe and effective as the traditional three-week course for people with early-stage breast cancer. 

The FAST-Forward trial, led by Keele’s Professor Murray Brunt and sponsored by The Institute of Cancer Research, London, followed more than 4000 patients for a decade after their treatment.  

The 10-year results of this phase III randomised trial, funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) and published in the Lancet Oncology, show that a shorter, five-day radiotherapy schedule provides the same level of cancer control as the traditional three-week treatment.  

These findings build on previous five-year results that have already driven a shift in clinical practice. Since 2020, it is estimated that tens of thousands of people in the UK have already benefited from the shorter course on the NHS. Researchers expect this approach will also reduce the burden on people undergoing treatment for breast cancer worldwide and expand access to life-saving radiotherapy.  

Breast cancer is one of the most common cancers globally, and radiotherapy plays a critical role in reducing the risk of recurrence after surgery. A shorter treatment course is not only more convenient for patients – it also reduces hospital visits and eases pressure on radiotherapy services, making treatment more accessible.  

The research team compared the traditional schedule of 15 treatments over three weeks with two shorter schedules that used five treatments over one week. The two shorter courses gave slightly different amounts of radiation to allow the research team to work out the best dose.   

After 10 years, cancer coming back in the treated breast was very low in all three groups: 3.6% for the standard three-week treatment, 2.9% with the one-week treatment with a slightly higher dose, 2.1% with the one-week treatment with a slightly lower dose.   

The lower dose one-week treatment had side effects that were very similar to the standard approach, with no increase in long-term breast or chest wall changes. Because of this, this dose and schedule are now the recommended option.  

Professor Murray Brunt, chief investigator of the FAST-Forward study and Professor of Clinical Oncology at Keele University, said: “These 10-year results provide definitive long-term evidence that one-week radiotherapy given at an appropriate dose to the breast is a safe, effective, and more practical option for people with breast cancer. 

“By reducing treatment from 15 sessions to just five, we can offer patients the same excellent cancer control with fewer hospital visits, less disruption to their daily life, and reduced pressure on healthcare services. This approach has already transformed practice in the UK and has the potential to improve access to life-saving treatment for people with cancer worldwide. 

“Hearing patients talk about how much it helps to only need one week of radiotherapy has been really encouraging for everyone involved.”  

Professor Judith Bliss, Professor of Clinical Trials at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, who co-led the trial, said: “The FAST-Forward trial is transforming cancer treatment by reducing standard breast radiotherapy from 3 weeks to just one week, without compromising effectiveness.  

“The streamlined schedule has made radiotherapy more accessible, particularly for people who find it difficult to attend hospital and those in lower-income countries.”  

“The FAST-Forward trial is part of a long-term programme of research into improving breast cancer radiotherapy at The Institute of Cancer Research (ICR).  

“These final 10-year results mark a significant milestone in breast cancer treatment and reinforce the growing shift toward more efficient radiotherapy approaches. The success of FAST-Forward has led to the ongoing NIHR-funded FAST-Forward Boost trial, which is investigating whether more extensive radiotherapy – including an additional ‘boost’ dose for some patients – can also safely be delivered in five days.  

Professor Anthony Gordon, Director for NIHR’s Health Technology Assessment (HTA) Programme, added: “The legacy of the FAST-Forward trial is clear to see, with thousands of women benefiting from shorter courses of radiotherapy and fewer hospital visits, helping the health and care sector to achieve more effective and efficient use of resources. The new 10-year results show the benefit of investing in high-quality, long-term research to improve the health and wealth of the nation.  

“NIHR’s research aims to tackle the most urgent health and social care challenges, targeting the areas of greatest need and where the most significant impact can be made. The findings from the FAST-Forward trial have already made a considerable difference to the treatment regimens that breast cancer patients undergo, making them more efficient, while at the same time, easing pressure on NHS services.”

Source: Keele University

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Can New Research on Malaria Enzymes Help Overcome Challenges to Treatment?

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Research published in The FEBS Journal may help overcome challenges to the treatment of malaria – a tropical disease caused by infection of red blood cells with Plasmodium parasites, which are transmitted through infected mosquito bites. The research is based on a strategy that targets an enzyme specific to the parasite, Falcipain-2 (FP2), which is essential for parasite survival and growth within the host.

FP2 allows the parasite to digest human haemoglobin so that it can replicate inside red blood cells, which leads to severe malaria symptoms, including red blood cell destruction. Although FP2 is parasite-specific, it is highly similar to a class of human enzymes called cathepsins. This study therefore sought to determine the detailed structural and functional characterizations of FP2 so that it could be targeting without harming cathepsins.

Previously, the researchers identified that polyethylene glycol (PEG) can form stable interactions with FP2. In this latest study, they focused on how different PEG molecules bind to FP2 and its target, haemoglobin. Their computational analyses identified a binding region, or pocket, of a particular PEG called PEG400 with FP2. This pocket exhibits minimal conservation in human cathepsins. PEG400 was capable of binding FP2 and affecting its digestion of haemoglobin.

“The findings pave the way for designing and incorporating new small molecule inhibitors of FP2 activity, suggesting opportunities for selective antimalarial therapies with a cumulative benefit of reducing off-target specificity,” said corresponding author Sampa Biswas, PhD, who conducted this work while at the Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, in India, and is currently at InBOL (Indian Barcode of Life) Health Care.

Source: Wiley

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One Mother Beat Blood Cancer Against the Odds. Thousands of Others Are Still Searching for Their Chance.

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As a professional photographer and mother of two young children, Claire had always been busy, but the long hours and constant fatigue felt like an occupational hazard. She never imagined that exhaustion could signal something far more serious than a demanding schedule.

Then, in January 2024, it happened: Claire blacked out at her desk while editing videos. It was her body’s final, unmistakable warning. What followed was a hospital stay, a bone marrow biopsy, and a diagnosis that would change her life forever. Claire had been diagnosed with blood cancer, specifically Myelodysplastic Syndrome (MDS), a serious bone marrow condition that, without treatment, can be fatal.

She was just 30 years old. And she was far from alone. Blood cancer remains one of the top five causes of cancer death in South Africa. Despite being potentially curable, countless patients never find their matching donor in time. Claire was determined not to become another statistic.

A Road Full of Obstacles

Claire’s path to diagnosis was not straightforward. Doctors initially attributed her worsening symptoms to iron deficiency, leaving her untreated as her condition quietly progressed. By the time MDS was correctly identified, the only viable path forward was a stem cell transplant.

While awaiting a donor match, Claire endured bi-weekly injections to keep her body stable, a gruelling holding pattern as her family and medical team searched for hope. That hope came through DKMS Africa, which successfully identified a fully matched, unrelated donor for Claire.

The first transplant, using cells from that 100% unrelated matched donor, was performed with great hope. Unfortunately, it was not successful.

Claire’s medical team was not deterred. Turning to family, they proceeded with a haplo-identical transplant, a “half-match” procedure using stem cells donated by Claire’s brother. This second transplant was successful.

Why Every Match Still Matters

Claire’s outcome is cause for deep gratitude and genuine celebration. But her journey also carries an urgent message that must not be lost in the relief of her survival.

Haplo-identical transplants, where stem cells are donated by a family member who is only a partial genetic match rather than a full one, can offer a path forward when a fully matched donor cannot be found. However, this option is not available or ideal for everyone. Not all patients have a suitable family donor, and even when they do, the procedure carries greater medical complexity and risk than a fully matched stem cell transplant.

For most patients, a 100% match from an unrelated donor remains the gold standard: the safest and most effective option. Yet only around 30% of patients find a compatible donor within their own family, meaning the remaining 70% depend entirely on a stranger’s decision to join the registry. The more people who register as potential donors, the greater the chance that every patient in need will find their match.

The critical shortage of registered donors, particularly from diverse ethnic backgrounds, means that for many, the search ends without a match. Despite blood cancer being potentially curable, countless patients never find their matching donor in time.

Every name added to the registry is a potential lifeline for someone, somewhere, waiting for their match.

A Family Restored

Today, Claire is recovering. Her children have their mother. Her family, who stood beside her through diagnosis, uncertainty, and two transplants, now share in a renewed sense of hope and possibility.

Her story does not end with survival. It continues with a plea to every person who has considered registering as a stem cell donor and hasn’t yet done so. “Help save others like me. We need more people to register as potential stem cell donors. Your registration could mean the difference between life and death.”

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Self-reported Family History Often Underestimates Relatives’ Heart Attacks

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A new study from Karolinska Institutet shows that people’s own reports of heart attacks in the family only partially correspond with register data. The findings suggest that heart attacks among relatives are often underreported, particularly for events occurring early in life.

Asking patients about cardiovascular disease in the family is common practice in both research and clinical risk assessment. But how reliable is this information? Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have investigated this by comparing self-reported family history with Swedish national registers. 

The study included just over 25 000 participants from the Swedish SCAPIS cohort. Participants were asked to state whether their parents or siblings had suffered a heart attack, and the information was then compared with diagnoses in the Patient and Cause of Death Registers.

The results, published in the European Journal of Epidemiology, show that the agreement between self-reported data and register data was only moderate. 

“Our findings show that data from questionnaires only capture part of the occurrence of heart attacks in families,” says Agnes Wahrenberg, researcher at the Department of Clinical Research and Education and resident physician at Södersjukhuset. The study forms part of her doctoral thesis.

For heart attacks in close relatives, the sensitivity was 57.6 per cent, meaning that many cases identified in the registers were not reported in the questionnaires. Misreporting was more common for cases of heart attack occurring early in life.

At the same time, the study highlights the unique opportunities that Swedish health registers offer for research into hereditary cardiovascular disease.

“These registers can be used to supplement and validate family history information in both large cohorts and future register studies,” says Per Svensson, associate professor at the same department and senior physician at Södersjukhuset.

Despite these limitations, the researchers emphasise that self-reported information remains valuable, as it is easy to obtain and can help identify individuals at increased risk in everyday clinical practice.

“It can be difficult to know exactly which diseases have occurred in relatives, particularly further back in time. The Swedish registers are a unique complement to studies on family history and cardiovascular disease, as they enable a more comprehensive assessment of disease in relatives”, says Agnes Wahrenberg.

Source: Karolinska Institutet