World Health Day 2024

5 April 2024
5 April 2024

Welcome to our curated virtual issue in honor of World Health Day! As we unite to celebrate the theme of “My Health, My Right,” we invite you to explore insightful articles that empower, inform, and inspire.

In this collection, you’ll find a diverse array of perspectives—from groundbreaking research to personal narratives—each emphasizing the fundamental right to health. From mental well-being to global healthcare access, our authors delve into critical topics that touch every corner of our lives.

Explore with us:

  • Breaking Barriers: Access to Healthcare for All: Discover how communities worldwide are working tirelessly to ensure equitable access to quality healthcare. Learn about innovative solutions, challenges, and the tireless advocates who champion this cause.
  • Mind Matters: Nurturing Mental Health: Dive into articles that shed light on mental health awareness, destigmatization, and strategies for fostering resilience.
  • Prevention is Power: Promoting Wellness: Explore evidence-based approaches to preventive care, healthy lifestyles, and disease management.
  • Global Perspectives: Health Beyond Borders: From rural villages to bustling cities, health transcends boundaries.

Join us in celebrating the right to health—a universal aspiration that knows no borders. Let these articles ignite conversations, spark curiosity, and empower you to advocate for a healthier world.

Articles

Open Access

A call to action to advance patient-focused and decentralized clinical trials

  • First Published: 09 January 2024

This commentary is a call to action for a concerted commitment and effort to transform clinical trials and enable people with cancer to participate in clinical trials closer to home. Three key strategies are identified to address major barriers: confront challenges with the interpretation of US Food and Drug Administration Form 1572 requirements (Statement of Investigator); broaden acceptance of local laboratories and imaging centers; and invest in the creation of effective, sustainable partnerships between research centers and local providers.

Open Access

Association of travel time, patient characteristics, and hospital quality with patient mobility for breast cancer surgery: A national population-based study

  • First Published: 08 January 2024

In the English National Health Service, a health care system that allows patients to choose where they receive cancer treatments, women diagnosed with breast cancer were more likely to receive surgery at hospitals offering specialist breast cancer procedures or that employed surgeons who had a media reputation. Older women, those with comorbid conditions, and ethnic minority women were less likely to travel to alternative, more distant hospitals for treatment, potentially exacerbating inequalities in outcomes.

Open Access

Promoting informed approaches in precision oncology and clinical trial participation for Black patients with cancer: Community-engaged development and pilot testing of a digital intervention

  • First Published: 13 October 2023

We developed and pilot-tested a digital intervention to promote informed decision-making regarding precision oncology and clinical trial participation among Black patients with cancer. Key informant interviews and pilot-testing suggest that the intervention could be a promising interactive decision-support tool.

Free Access

Second edition of the Milan System for Reporting Salivary Gland Cytopathology: Refining the role of salivary gland FNA

The second edition of the Milan System for Reporting Salivary Gland Cytopathology, published in July 2023, includes refined risks of malignancy based on systematic reviews and meta-analyses, a new chapter summarizing the use of salivary gland imaging, new advances in ancillary testing, updates in nomenclature, and a guide to the practical application of the latest ancillary markers for the diagnosis of selected salivary gland fine-needle aspiration cases.

Open Access

The rationale for the development and publication of the World Health Organization reporting systems for cytopathology and a brief overview of the first editions of the lung and pancreaticobiliary systems

The World Health Organization (WHO) reporting systems for lung and pancreaticobiliary cytopathology were recently published and will be closely followed by the publication of WHO reporting systems for lymph node, spleen and thymus, and soft tissue cytopathology and then reporting systems on liver, breast, and kidney and adrenal. This review provides the rationale and history of this joint International Academy of Cytology, International Agency for Research on Cancer, and WHO cytopathology project and a brief overview of the WHO reporting systems for lung and pancreaticobiliary cytopathology.

Open Access

Challenges facing standardised patients representing equity-deserving groups: Insights from health care educators

The authors explore healthcare educator insights into how safety for Standardized Patient work related to equity-deserving groups requires unique focus to avoid the educational process itself being oppressive.

Open Access

Who is the ‘standard’ patient?

The authors describe the harm, to patients and professionals alike, of medical education's tendency to assume the white cisgendered man to be the "normal" from which all other patient identities are deviations.

Open Access

A narrative inquiry into non-Indigenous medical educators and leaders participation in reconciliatory work

This paper aims to better understand the pathways of non-Indigenous medical educators and leaders engaged in Indigenous reconciliation.

Open Access

Differences in site-specific cancer incidence by individual- and area-level income in Canada from 2006 to 2015

Differences in site-specific cancer incidence by individual- and area-level income in Canada from 2006 to 2015

What's new?

Socioeconomic status influences access to healthcare, impacting individuals' health and cancer risk. Here, the significance of socioeconomic status and income in cancer was investigated by comparing associations between individual- and area-level income and site-specific cancer incidence within a Canadian population. Incidence rates varied according to cancer site and income. Notably, incidence of digestive tract cancers, such as stomach and colorectal cancer, was elevated among individuals with low income, while melanoma, cancers of blood-forming tissues and breast and prostate cancer were more common among those with high income. The findings suggest that income predicts overall and site-specific cancer incidence in Canada.

Open Access

Healthy lifestyle and cancer survival: A multinational cohort study

Healthy lifestyle and cancer survival: A multinational cohort study

What's new?

This study investigated the independent and joint associations of healthy lifestyle factors with mortality outcomes among cancer survivors by analyzing data from four prospective cohorts across three countries—the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey and National Health Interview Survey in the United States, the UK Biobank and the Kailuan study in China. Adhering to a healthy lifestyle could reduce the risk of all-cause and cancer mortality by half among cancer survivors. Specifically, avoiding smoking and excessive alcohol consumption, maintaining a healthy diet, engaging in physical activity and maintaining a healthy body mass index were associated with improved prognosis.

Open Access

Differences in time to patient access to innovative cancer medicines in six European countries

Differences in time to patient access to innovative cancer medicines in six European countries

What's new?

The first point of patient access to innovative medicines in Europe often occurs via early access programs (EAPs) or off-label use. Consideration of these factors, however, is mostly neglected in patient access evaluations. This study explored patient access to oncology medicines at the hospital level, with consideration of time, indications and context. Significant heterogeneity in time to access was observed between countries and hospitals. Specialized hospitals were likely to expedite access prior to reimbursement, and some countries were more likely to grant access via EAPs or off-label use. The findings highlight opportunities to improve access to oncology medicines across Europe.

Open Access

Socioeconomic inequality in prostate cancer diagnostics, primary treatment, rehabilitation, and mortality in Sweden

Socioeconomic inequality in prostate cancer diagnostics, primary treatment, rehabilitation, and mortality in Sweden

What's new?

Socioeconomic factors influence individual cancer characteristics, as well as quality of cancer care and patient outcomes. Few studies on socioeconomic differences, however, have clearly described impacts specifically on prostate cancer care. Here, the authors investigated associations between aspects of care and education and household income among men with prostate cancer in Sweden. Analyses show that household income and education are significantly associated with use of pre-biopsy magnetic resonance imaging, primary treatment, sexual rehabilitation after surgery, and cause-specific mortality for high-risk non-metastatic prostate cancer. Covariate adjustments attenuated socioeconomic mortality gradients, suggesting that socioeconomic factors influence diagnostics more than later specialist prostate cancer care.

Open Access

Prediction of death rates for cardiovascular diseases and cancers

Prediction of death rates for cardiovascular diseases and cancers

A novel health system reliability method has been developed and applied to cardio and cancer death rate data. Accurate disease multiregional prediction is done.

Open Access

Perspectives of vitamin C upregulating regulatory T cells in the era of thrombopoietin receptor agonists for immune thrombocytopenia

Perspectives of vitamin C upregulating regulatory T cells in the era of thrombopoietin receptor agonists for immune thrombocytopenia

Gross platelet deficiency marks idiopathic thrombocytopenia's pathophysiology: normalization of the regulatory T cells (Tregs) through demethylation may well reverse the abnormal DNA methylation. Despite thrombopoietic receptor agonists’ recognized effectiveness, strongly demethylating (yet safe and affordable) ascorbate (e.g. with a plasma level of >1 mM several hours/week) could prevent their undesirable “rebound phenomenon” upon routine discontinuation, especially if abruptly mandated by refusal/adverse effects. [In Figure 1, star-shaped objects are platelets; Y-shaped objects are autoantibodies; in Figure 2, pro-inflammatory T helper 17 (Th17) cells are characterized by RORγt: a transcription factor (encoded by the gene Rorc) of the retinoic acid-receptor (RAR)-related orphan receptor (ROR) family. In ITP, Tregs expressing forkhead box P3 (Foxp3) are crucial for controlling ITP: in Figure 3, TET: ten-eleven translocation enzymes; 5mC; 5hmc: 5-hydroxymethylcytosine (the initiating step of active DNA demethylation. A cofactor fostering this process is vitamin C which acts synergistically with retinoic acid (RA)].

Open Access

Glucocorticoid-induced osteonecrosis in systemic lupus erythematosus patients

Glucocorticoid-induced osteonecrosis in systemic lupus erythematosus patients

ON is a complex and multifactorial complication of Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE). However, the pathophysiology and risk factors for ON in patients with SLE have not been fully determined yet. Here, we review the epidemiology, risk factors, diagnosis, and treatment options for glucocorticoid-induced ON, with a specific focus on patients with SLE

Open Access

Development and validation of a prognostic model incorporating tumor thrombus grading for nonmetastatic clear cell renal cell carcinoma with tumor thrombus: A multicohort study

  • First Published: 20 July 2023
Development and validation of a prognostic model incorporating tumor thrombus grading for nonmetastatic clear cell renal cell carcinoma with tumor thrombus: A multicohort study

Inspired by the metastasis-seeding potential of VTT in ccRCC, we identified for the first time that pathological grading of VTT could serve as an unheeded prognostic factor. By incorporating VTT grading, TT-GPS score was constructed, displaying superior discriminatory ability for risk stratification in nonmetastatic ccRCC patients with VTT. This study highlights the significance of introducing VTT grading or TT-GPS score into routine pathological reports to improve the efficacy of risk assessment.

Open Access

Nonviral vector system for cancer immunogene therapy

Nonviral vector system for cancer immunogene therapy

Immunogene therapy has become an effective and significant clinical strategy for cancer therapy. Enhancing the response rate to immunogene therapy is significant to controlling side effects and improving efficacy. Improved nonviral vectors combined with immunogene therapy efficiently deliver genes to the desired tumor cells and activate immune response to fight tumors while alleviating adverse reactions, which is a promising treatment approach for cancer.

Open Access

Chemoimmunotherapy for esophageal squamous cell carcinoma—Summary and discussion of recent clinical trials

Chemoimmunotherapy for esophageal squamous cell carcinoma—Summary and discussion of recent clinical trials

A large majority of clinical trials demonstrate the promising results of the addition of immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) to the existing treatment strategy for patients with advanced or metastatic esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC). Therefore, this article aims to discuss the results of these trials and to highlight the changes and future of ESCC treatment.

Open Access

New era for emerging therapeutic targeting human epidermal growth factor receptor 3 (HER 3) in advanced nonsmall cell lung cancer and metastatic breast cancer

New era for emerging therapeutic targeting human epidermal growth factor receptor 3 (HER 3) in advanced nonsmall cell lung cancer and metastatic breast cancer

Human epidermal growth factor receptor 3 (HER3) overexpression represents a negative prognostic biomarker associated with poor survival. Targeting HER3 has shown some promise in early phase trials in both nonsmall cell lung cancer and metastatic breast cancer in heavily pretreated patients with varying degrees of response. Identifying a predictive biomarker will aid to better select patients that will respond to treatment.