Before the UK national bowel cancer screening programmes were implemented, a pilot was set-up in England to see if results from randomised controlled trials could be replicated in the general population. Gut has recently published findings from the third round of this.

Co-author David Weller, Centre for Population Health Sciences–General Practice, University of Edinburgh, UK, talks to Gut’s associate editor William Grady about effectiveness of screening, uptake and its link to ethnicity, and the potential of different methods.

See also:

Performance measures in three rounds of the English bowel cancer screening pilot (http://tinyurl.com/afyj365)

Mairi McLean, Gut education editor, talks to Professor Mark Hull, Leeds Institute of Molecular Medicine, about his research into the action of polyunsaturated fatty acids on the formation of neoplams.

See also:

Omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids for the treatment and prevention of colorectal cancer (http://tinyurl.com/a7q8co4)

In the UK chronic gastrointestinal symptoms after cancer therapies have a similar impact as IBD. However, in contrast to patients with IBD, most of these patients won’t see a gastroenterologist. In this month’s Gut Editor’s Choice the causes of these side effects of cancer treatment are discussed, as well as the benefits of investigation and treatment.

In this podcast Mairi McLean, senior clinical lecturer and consultant in gastroenterology at the University of Aberdeen talks to some key stakeholders in this issue:

Professor Sir Mike Richards, national clinical director for cancer and end of life care, Department of Health

Jane Maher, chief medical officer for McMillian Cancer Support

Jon Rhodes, professor of gastroenterology and president of the British Society of Gastroenterology

Jervoise Andeyev, consultant gastroenterologist in pelvic radiation disease at the Royal Marsden NHS Trust, London

See also:

Practice guidance on the management of acute and chronic gastrointestinal problems arising as a result of treatment for cancer (http://tinyurl.com/a6krvl8)

Liam O’Mahony (Swiss Institute of Allergy and Asthma Research) talks to Mairi McLean (senior clinical lecturer and consultant in gastroenterology at the University of Aberdeen) about his paper looking at Bifidobacterium infantis’s interaction with T cells, and the bacterium’s potential to protect against gastrointestinal inflammation.

See also:

Bifidobacterium infantis 35624 administration induces Foxp3 T regulatory cells in human peripheral blood: potential role for myeloid and plasmacytoid dendritic cells (http://tinyurl.com/b6xnnsx)

Mairi Mclean, Gut’s education editor, talks to Matteo Serino from the Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (INSERM), about his article Metabolic adaptation to a high-fat diet is associated with a change in the gut microbiota (http://tinyurl.com/a4rdl2e), which is this month’s editor’s choice.

Gut education editor Mairi Mclean talks to Professor Peter Malfertheiner, from the European Helicobacter Study Group, about the May editor’s choice paper: Management of Helicobacter pylori infection—the Maastricht IV/ Florence Consensus Report.

See also:

Guidelines: Management of Helicobacter pylori infection—the Maastricht IV/ Florence Consensus Report (http://tinyurl.com/bj2zn2g)

Gut education editor Mairi Mclean talks to Dr Shuji Ogino, from Harvard Medical School, about his paper on the asessment of colorectal cancer molecular features.

See also:

Assessment of colorectal cancer molecular features along bowel subsites challenges the conception of distinct dichotomy of proximal versus distal colorectum (http://tinyurl.com/bgs7o7u)

Mairi Mclean (Gut education editor) talks to Maria Rescigno (European Institute of Oncology, Milan) about her editor’s choice paper - Probiotic and postbiotic activity in health and disease: comparison on a novel polarised ex-vivo organ culture model. (http://tinyurl.com/a8z4uqr)

Mairi McLean (Gut’s education editor) discusses August’s editor’s choice paper, on NKT-associated hedgehog and osteopontin and their role in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, with authors Anna Mae Diehl (chief, Division of Gastroenterology, Duke University), Wing-Kin Syn (head of Regeneration and Repair, Institute of Hepatology, London) and Steve Choi (assistant professor, Division of Gastroenterology, Duke University).

See also:

NKT-associated hedgehog and osteopontin drive fibrogenesis in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (http://tinyurl.com/aq5jt9p)

The Bowel Cancer Screening Programme has now been operating in England for six years, so how effective has it been in terms of take-up and detection? A paper in Gut examines the outcomes, and education editor Mairi McLean talks to some of the authors to hear what they found.

See also:

Outcomes of the Bowel Cancer Screening Programme (BCSP) in England after the first 1 million tests (http://tinyurl.com/ax3cnlm)