Adoption of routine surgical video recording: a nationwide freedom of information act request across England and Wales.

Background: Surgical video contains data with significant potential to improve surgical outcome assessment, quality assurance, education, and research. Current utilisation of surgical video recording is unknown and related policies/governance structures are unclear. Methods: A nationwide Freedom of Information (FOI) request concerning surgical video recording, technology, consent, access, and governance was sent to all acute National Health Service (NHS) trusts/boards in England/Wales between 20th February and 20th March 2023. Findings: 140/144 (97.2%) trusts/boards in England/Wales responded to the FOI request. Surgical procedures were routinely recorded in 22 trusts/boards. The median estimate of consultant surgeons routinely recording their procedures was 20%. Surgical video was stored on internal systems (n = 27), third-party products (n = 29), and both (n = 9). 32/140 (22.9%) trusts/boards ask for consent to record procedures as part of routine care. Consent for recording included non-clinical purposes in 55/140 (39.3%) trusts/boards. Policies for surgeon/patient access to surgical video were available in 48/140 (34.3%) and 32/140 (22.9%) trusts/boards, respectively. Surgical video was used for non-clinical purposes in 64/140 (45.7%) trusts/boards. Governance policies covering surgical video recording, use, and/or storage were available from 59/140 (42.1%) trusts/boards. Interpretation: There is significant heterogeneity in surgical video recording practices in England and Wales. A minority of trusts/boards routinely record surgical procedures, with large variation in recording/storage practices indicating scope for NHS-wide coordination. Revision of surgical video consent, accessibility, and governance policies should be prioritised by trusts/boards to protect key stakeholders. Increased availability of surgical video is essential for patients and surgeons to maximally benefit from the ongoing digital transformation of surgery. Funding: KL is supported by an NIHR Academic Clinical Fellowship and acknowledges infrastructure support for this research from the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Imperial Biomedical Research Centre (BRC).

scmap: projection of single-cell RNA-seq data across data sets.

Single-cell RNA-seq (scRNA-seq) allows researchers to define cell types on the basis of unsupervised clustering of the transcriptome. However, differences in experimental methods and computational analyses make it challenging to compare data across experiments. Here we present scmap (http://bioconductor.org/packages/scmap; web version at http://www.sanger.ac.uk/science/tools/scmap), a method for projecting cells from an scRNA-seq data set onto cell types or individual cells from other experiments.

Circulating uric acid levels and subsequent development of cancer in 493,281 individuals: findings from the AMORIS Study.

OBJECTIVES: Serum uric acid has been suggested to be associated with cancer risk. We aimed to study the association between serum uric acid and cancer incidence in a large Swedish cohort. RESULTS: A positive association was found between uric acid levels and overall cancer risk, and results were similar with adjustment for glucose, triglycerides and BMI. Hazard ratio (HR) for overall cancer for the 4th quartile of uric acid compared to the 1st was 1.08 (95% CI: 1.05-1.11) in men and 1.12 (1.09 - 1.16) in women. Site-specific analysis showed a positive association between uric acid and risk of colorectal, hepatobiliary, kidney, non-melanoma skin, and other cancers in men and of head and neck and other cancers in women. An inverse association was observed for pulmonary and central nervous system (CNS) cancers in men and breast, lymphatic and haematological, and CNS malignancies in women. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We included 493,281 persons aged 20 years and older who had a measurement of serum uric acid and were cancer-free at baseline in the AMORIS study. Multivariable Cox proportional hazards regression was used to investigate sex-specific quartiles of serum uric acid in relation to cancer risk in men and women. Analysis was further adjusted for serum glucose, triglycerides and, where available, BMI. Site-specific analysis was performed for major cancers. CONCLUSIONS: Altered uric acid levels were associated with risk of overall and some specific cancers, further indicating the potential role of uric acid metabolism in carcinogenesis.

SC3: consensus clustering of single-cell RNA-seq data.

Single-cell RNA-seq enables the quantitative characterization of cell types based on global transcriptome profiles. We present single-cell consensus clustering (SC3), a user-friendly tool for unsupervised clustering, which achieves high accuracy and robustness by combining multiple clustering solutions through a consensus approach (http://bioconductor.org/packages/SC3). We demonstrate that SC3 is capable of identifying subclones from the transcriptomes of neoplastic cells collected from patients.

Biomarkers in Colorectal Cancer.

Colorectal cancer is the third most common cancer worldwide, with 1.36 million people diagnosed in 2012. The prognosis of colorectal cancer is better with an earlier diagnosis. The outcome of colorectal cancer may also be improved by targeting pathways involved in colorectal cancer formation, such as anti-epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) therapy. An understanding of colorectal carcinogenesis is essential for the design of molecular targeting. Recent advances in the molecular subtypes of colorectal cancer, methylation of DNA in colorectal cancer, and micro-RNA biogenesis, and their involvement in colorectal cancer have resulted in the identification of many new colorectal biomarkers. Such biomarkers may be used for earlier diagnosis of, selection of 'personalised' therapy for, and prognosis of colorectal cancer. Many of these biomarkers appear promising in small-scale studies. However, validation of their effectiveness with large-scale clinical trials is needed before routine clinical application. To this end, the recently established consensus molecular subtypes of colorectal cancer would enable like-for-like comparisons of the treatment outcomes of clinical trials.