Patron Baroness Helena Kennedy KC appears on Private Passions on BBC Radio 3

Saving Faces Patron Baroness Helena Kennedy KC appeared on Private Passions on BBC Radio 3.

In conversation with Michael Berkeley, she looks back to the childhood which has been so influential on her campaigns for justice, and chooses the music which has sustained her through a series of difficult and high-profile cases. Her playlist includes Handel, Bach, Schubert, George Benjamin, James MacMillan, and her favourite Puccini opera, with Mimi’s famous aria from La Boheme.

You can listen to the programme here.

Professor Hutchison features in documentary ‘In a Blink of an Eye’

Following his comments on the atrocious events happening in Iran of Iranian forces shooting at the faces and genital of female protesters, Professor Hutchison was asked to feature in a documentary which looked into systematic blinding of protesters during the recent uprising in Iran.

You can watch part 1 here:

http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=dj3iMpkpy7Y

You can watch part 2 here:

http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5OMtueddO4

Professor Hutchison comments on the Iranian forces shooting female protesters – The Guardian, 8th December 2022

Professor Hutchison comments on the appalling events happening in Iran of Iranian forces shooting at the faces and genitals of female protesters.

Read full article here – https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/dec/08/iranian-forces-shooting-at-faces-and-genitals-of-female-protesters-medics-say 

Global VRiMS

The UK’s surgical research charity Saving Faces and its national research centre NFORC are proud to support Professor Jag Dhanda of the Brighton Medical School and Helen Please of the Global Anaesthesia, Surgery and Obstetric Collaboration Trainee Collaboration as they launch Virtual Reality in Medicine and Surgery.

This is a world first training over 1,400 doctors from low-and middle-income countries today and over the next 4 days in real time at Brighton Medical School and Hospital how to perform life-saving surgery using virtual reality.

The use of virtual reality will immerse the doctors in the operations and dissections of how to perform life-saving surgery in African communities which are remote from major cities and hospitals.

You can listen to our Chief Executive Professor Iain Hutchison discussing VRiMS here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSatS0yabqU 

 

New PCR test for oral cancer set to revolutionise diagnosis and treatment

qMIDS, the world’s first rapid oral cancer test, has been developed by Queen Mary University of London and an international team of researchers. It has the potential to relieve pressure on the NHS and may improve the early detection of oral cancer.

Saving Faces has supported researchers at Queen Mary University of London who have developed the world’s first PCR test for mouth cancer. The test has now been proved with patients from China, India and the UK, with the results published in the international journal, Cancers. The inventor, Dr Muy-Teck Teh, named the test the Quantitative Malignant Index Diagnosis System (qMIDS).

qMIDS diagnostic accuracy would mean that 90% of low-risk patients could be discharged from hospital to go back to their dentist or GP for review. Or they might be tested in the dentist’s surgery and only referred to secondary care if they were high risk. High-risk cases could also be detected in the pre-cancer period and treated definitively, thereby saving the patient’s life with minor surgery, better cure rates and quality of life, as well as a huge reduction in health service costs.

The test process is largely automated, removing the need for expensive pathologists. There’s also no need for invasive biopsies. The tests can be carried out on multiple sites when patients have lesions affecting large areas throughout the mouth.

Co-study lead, Professor Iain Hutchison, stated: “qMIDS dramatically improves our management of mouth cancer and its pre-cancerous state, saving lives and healthcare costs. Surgeons and dentists anywhere in the world can use this test for minimally invasive tissue samples because all it needs is a PCR machine and the technician who operates it.

“qMIDS will help us identify patients with pre-malignancies that will never transform to cancer, so they can be reassured and discharged from hospital review. Patients with high-risk premalignancy can have minor surgery to remove the lesion before it has transformed to cancer, thereby curing the patient and saving them major surgery, which in turn reduces health service costs. It is a powerful tool especially when used in conjunction with conventional histopathology assessment.”

Read full journal article here

Read news coverage here

 

 

BAOMS Chair Patrick Magennis comments on the SEND publication in The OTJ Journal November 2019 issue

“This open access paper funded by charity Saving Faces and Cancer Research UK (CRUK) is ground-breaking. OMFS cancer surgeons from all over the UK were involved in the study, and British Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons (BAOMS) is proud that this research was completed and published.

The study was possible because of a unique collaboration between 68 UK-based surgeons treating 614 patients at 27 UK hospitals. The research compared leaving or taking out neck glands that did not have obvious secondary cancers at the same time as removing the patient’s small mouth cancer. OMFS know that between 20 and 30 in every 100 patients with small mouth cancers have tiny microscopic cancer deposits in their neck glands that can’t be picked up by any scanners. Now OMFS have the evidence about the risks and benefits of removing the neck glands in early mouth cancer. This information will help patients participate in decisions about their treatment.

To mis-quote John F Kennedy in this the 50th anniversary year of the moon landings, OMFS surgeons want to do randomised surgical trials ‘not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organise and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone’.

This paper is a credit to all involved.”

– Patrick Magennis, British Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons (BAOMS) Chair and Saving Faces Deputy Chair of Trustees

Click here to read more about the SEND paper.

Click here to read the full November 2019 issue of The Operating Theatre Journal.

Operating-Theatre-Journal-November-2019

Preventing Domestic Violence – The Hippocratic Post , 18 January 2018

“Some of the most terrible facial injuries I have ever had to deal with have been due to domestic violence. What starts with a slap and an apology can quickly escalate until a woman is regularly being injured, sometimes at risk to her life. I’ll never forget one woman who was brought into theatre with stab wounds covering her face and neck as well as her abdomen. She died of blood loss.”

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