CANCER RISKS IN SCLERODERMA

People with scleroderma have a higher risk of developing cancer especially that of the lung. Researchers examined data from the South Australian Scleroderma Registry and the South Australian Cancer Registry and found 90 cancer cases in 441 patients. The standardised incidence ratio (SIR) was high for all scleroderma patients, at 1.99, compared with the standard population. The SIRs for all cancers among the disorder subgroups (diffused scleroderma and limited scleroderma) were also significantly increased. The risk found is larger than that for polymyositis and is approaching that of dermatomyositis, leading the authors to suggest that clinicians should be as aware of the increased cancer risk from disorders as they are of that from those scleroderma. (

)

GASTROINTESTINAL DISEASE PREVALENCE

The increasing burden of gastrointestinal diseases prompted researchers to examine the prevalence of several conditions in members of two UK national birth cohorts from 1958 and 1970. Every cohort member living in the UK in 1999–2000 was interviewed, and the prevalence rates of Crohn’s disease (CD), ulcerative colitis (UC), irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), gall stones (GS), and peptic ulcer disease (PUD) were calculated. People born in 1970 were significantly more likely to have CD and IBS, while UC, …