Lucy Carpenter: Annual Report 2002-2003

Lucy Carpenter (Faculty Fellow) continued her research into the long-term health of members of the armed forces who took part in chemical warfare agent trials in the UK at Porton Down. This will compare death rates (and cancer registrations) in around 20,000 members, who took part in trials in the 1940s, 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s, with rates in those who did not. A health survey of surviving veterans who had taken part in trials in the past is now underway. This work is collaborative, primarily with Dr Kate Venables here in Oxford, and also researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), and Imperial College, London. Her earlier work - investigating associations between cancer and occupation, based on the analysis of over 1 million cancer registrations in adults in England and Wales (1971-1990) - has now been completed and published. This involved a novel graphical approach, developed by Sir David Cox, and involved colleagues at the Leukaemia Research Fund and the LSHTM. Further research completed this year included a population-based project studying HIV in rural Uganda. This randomized community intervention trial found that a behavioural change programme had no effect on rates of HIV infection, even when implemented in combination with improved management of other sexually transmitted infections. Several reasons for this disappointing finding are discussed in the Lancet publication (see below). The main focus of her Ugandan work now involves studying relationships between infectious diseases and cancer with Dr Rob Newton and colleagues employed by Cancer Research UK.

Publications

(with D R Cox, J Doughty, N T Fear, G R Law, E Roman, J Simpson and N Maconochie) 'Occupation and Cancer: The Application of a Novel Graphical Approach to Routinely Collected Registration Data', Health Statistics Quarterly, 17, 23-32, 2003.

(with A Kamali, J Kinsman, N Nalweyiso, K Mitchell, E Kanyesigye, M Quigley, J F Kengeya-Kayondo, A Nunn and J A G Whitworth) 'A Community Randomized Controlled Trial to Investigate Impact of Improved STD Management and Behavioural Interventions on HIV Incidence in Rural Masaka, Uganda: Trial Design, Methods and Baseline Findings', Tropical Medicine and International Health, 7, 1053-1063, 2002.

(with A Kamali, M Quigley, J Nakiyingi, J Kinsman, J Kengeya-Kayondo, R Gopal, A Ojwiya, P Hughes and J Whitworth) 'Syndromic Management of Sexually-Transmitted Infections and Behaviour Change Interventions on Transmission of HIV-1 in Rural Uganda: A Community Randomized Trial', Lancet, 361, 645-652, 2003.

(with J Ziegler, R Newton, D Bourboulia, D Casabonne, V Beral, E Mbidde, G Reeves, D M Parkin, H Wabinga, S Mbulaiteye, H Jaffe, the Uganda Kaposi's Sarcoma Study Group, R Weiss and C Boshoff) 'Risk Factors for Kaposi's Sarcoma: A Case-control Study of HIV-seronegative People in Uganda', International Journal of Cancer, 103, 233-240, 2003.

(with R Newton, J Ziegler, C Ateenyi-Agaba, L Bousarghin, D Casabonne, V Beral, E Mbidde, G Reeves, DM Parkin, H Wabinga, S Mbulaiteye, H Jaffe, D Bourboulia, C Boshoff, P Coursaget and the Uganda Kaposi's Sarcoma Study Group) 'The Epidemiology of Conjunctival Squamous Cell Carcinoma in Uganda', British Journal of Cancer, 87, 301-308, 2002.

(with R Newton, J Ziegler, D Bourboulia, D Casabonne, V Beral, E Mbidde, G Reeves, DM Parkin, H Wabinga, S Mbulaiteye, H Jaffe, the Uganda Kaposi's Sarcoma Study Group, R Weiss and C Boshoff) 'The Sero-epidemiology of Kaposi's Sarcoma-associated Herpesvirus in Adults with Cancer, in Uganda', International Journal of Cancer, 103, 226-232, 2003.

(with R Newton, J Ziegler, D Bourboulia, D Casabonne, V Beral, E Mbidde, DM Parkin, H Wabinga, S Mbulaiteye, H Jaffe, the Uganda Kaposi's Sarcoma Study Group, R Weiss and C Boshoff) 'Infection With Kaposi's Sarcoma-associated Herpesvirus (KSHV) and Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) in Relation to the Risk and Clinical Presentation of Kaposi's Sarcoma in Uganda', British Journal of Cancer, 89, 502-504, 2003.