Theme Lead - Professor Kamlesh Khunti
Theme Manager - Mr Bill O'Leary

Detecting medical conditions in people early is a vital step in ensuring that they receive all the necessary support, care and advice. Early detection can also mean that the interventions used are less intrusive than if the condition goes undiagnosed for some time – diet and exercise in people with diabetes for instance rather than prescribing tablets. Early detection can also prevent, or at the least slow down, the development of some of the long term complications that will face people with a medical condition. For these reasons the NIHR CLAHRC for LNR early detection theme studies are a vital contribution to our knowledge on early detection strategies and how they can work most effectively. Translating this knowledge into actual practice will support health care systems in developing effective screening methodologies; a key step in delivering the vascular screening programme in England.

In the Early Detection Theme we have seven main areas of investigation:

• A study examining two different ways of encouraging the take-up of self-assessment for people at risk of diabetes
• A study based in pharmacies examining the impact of self assessment and HbA1c testing for those at high risk of diabetes
• A study looking at the prevalence of diabetes, newly diagnosed diabetes and pre-diabetes in a mixed ethnic population following an MI
• A study on ways to improve early presentation of TIA/Stroke patients to specialist services
• A study on interventions to reduce strain in carers of ethnic minority stroke victims
• A study examining the use of Dynamic Plaque Indices to reduce risk in (A)symptomatic carotid artery stenosis
• A study examining the barriers to engagement in bowel cancer screening