Stephen R Knight's research while affiliated with WWF United Kingdom and other places

Publications (123)

Article
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BACKGROUND: Most studies of immunity to SARS-CoV-2 focus on circulating antibody, giving limited insights into mucosal defences that prevent viral replication and onward transmission. We studied nasal and plasma antibody responses one year after hospitalisation for COVID-19, including a period when SARS-CoV-2 vaccination was introduced. METHODS: In...
Article
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For many blood-based diagnostic tests, including prophylactic drug analysis and malaria assays, red blood cells must be lysed effectively prior to their use in an analytical workflow. We report on a finger-actuated blood lysate preparation device, which utilises a previously reported acoustofluidic micromixer module. The integrated device includes...
Article
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Background Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most common cancer worldwide. Approximately 42 000 new cases of CRC are diagnosed each year in the UK (1) (2). At diagnosis many patients (20–25%) already have colorectal liver metastases (CLRM) and further patients develop CRLM after their primary cancer is detected. Evidence suggests that survival r...
Article
Background Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is the twelfth commonest cancer worldwide, and predicted to be the second most common cause of cancer death by 2030. Outcomes are poor, just 20% of patients present with resectable disease of which up to 85% recur post-surgery. Loco-regional treatment of limited metastatic recurrence, termed metach...
Article
Full-text available
Background Most studies of immunity to SARS-CoV-2 focus on circulating antibody, giving limited insights into mucosal defences that prevent viral replication and onward transmission. We studied nasal and plasma antibody responses one year after hospitalisation for COVID-19, including a period when SARS-CoV-2 vaccination was introduced. Methods In...
Article
Complement, a critical defence against pathogens, has been implicated as a driver of pathology in COVID-19. Complement activation products are detected in plasma and tissues and complement blockade considered for therapy. To delineate roles of complement in immunopathogenesis, we undertook the largest comprehensive study of complement in an COVID-1...
Article
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Background The 2015 Lancet Commission on global surgery identified surgery and anaesthesia as indispensable parts of holistic health-care systems. However, COVID-19 exposed the fragility of planned surgical services around the world, which have also been neglected in pandemic recovery planning. This study aimed to develop and validate a novel index...
Article
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Background The 2015 Lancet Commission on global surgery identified surgery and anaesthesia as indispensable parts of holistic health-care systems. However, COVID-19 exposed the fragility of planned surgical services around the world, which have also been neglected in pandemic recovery planning. This study aimed to develop and validate a novel index...
Article
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Background: The 2015 Lancet Commission on global surgery identified surgery and anaesthesia as indispensable parts of holistic health-care systems. However, COVID-19 exposed the fragility of planned surgical services around the world, which have also been neglected in pandemic recovery planning. This study aimed to develop and validate a novel inde...
Article
Full-text available
Background: The 2015 Lancet Commission on global surgery identified surgery and anaesthesia as indispensable parts of holistic health-care systems. However, COVID-19 exposed the fragility of planned surgical services around the world, which have also been neglected in pandemic recovery planning. This study aimed to develop and validate a novel inde...
Article
Background: We conducted this study to assess the prevalence of viral coinfection in a well characterized cohort of hospitalized coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients and to investigate the impact of coinfection on disease severity. Methods: Multiplex real-time polymerase chain reaction testing for endemic respiratory viruses was performed o...
Article
Full-text available
Background The 2015 Lancet Commission on global surgery identified surgery and anaesthesia as indispensable parts of holistic health-care systems. However, COVID-19 exposed the fragility of planned surgical services around the world, which have also been neglected in pandemic recovery planning. This study aimed to develop and validate a novel index...
Preprint
Full-text available
For many blood-based diagnostic tests, including prophylactic drug analysis and malaria assays, red blood cells must be lysed effectively prior to their use in an analytical workflow. We report on a finger-actuated blood lysate preparation device, which utilises a previously reported acoustofluidic micromixer module. The integrated device includes...
Article
Medical students have an essential role in medical research, yet often lack opportunities for involvement within randomised trials. This study aimed to understand the educational impact of clinical trial recruitment for medical students. Tracking wound infection with smartphone technology (TWIST) was a randomised controlled trial that included adul...
Article
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There is a high incidence of preoperative undernutrition in hospitalised patients in low and middle‐income countries (LMICs), leading to increased postoperative complications, length of hospital stay and early mortality. Review aims are to establish the prevalence of undernutrition and assess the use of validated nutritional screening tools in surg...
Article
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Background Up to 30% of hospitalised patients with COVID-19 require advanced respiratory support, including high-flow nasal cannulas (HFNC), non-invasive mechanical ventilation (NIV), or invasive mechanical ventilation (IMV). We aimed to describe the clinical characteristics, outcomes and risk factors for failing non-invasive respiratory support in...
Article
Aim To determine the impact of axillary lymph node dissection (ALND) for breast cancer on 30-day mortality and complication rates across different income settings. Method GlobalSurg3 was a multicentre, international prospective cohort study of patients undergoing surgery for breast cancer. Primary outcomes were death, major complications (Clavien-...
Article
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Malnutrition is an independent predictor for postoperative complications in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). We systematically reviewed evidence on the impact of preoperative oral nutrition supplementation (ONS) on patients undergoing gastrointestinal cancer surgery in LMICs. We searched EMBASE, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, Scopus, WH...
Article
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The International Severe Acute Respiratory and Emerging Infection Consortium (ISARIC) COVID-19 dataset is one of the largest international databases of prospectively collected clinical data on people hospitalized with COVID-19. This dataset was compiled during the COVID-19 pandemic by a network of hospitals that collect data using the ISARIC-World...
Article
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Background Stratifying risk of postoperative pulmonary complications after major abdominal surgery allows clinicians to modify risk through targeted interventions and enhanced monitoring. In this study, we aimed to identify and validate prognostic models against a new consensus definition of postoperative pulmonary complications. Methods We did a...
Article
Background: Data on interventions to reduce postoperative pancreatic fistula (POPF) following pancreatoduodenectomy (PD) are conflicting. The aim of this study was to assimilate data from RCTs. Methods: MEDLINE and Embase databases were searched systematically for RCTs evaluating interventions to reduce all grades of POPF or clinically relevant...
Article
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Background: Emergency general surgery (EGS) patients account for more than one-third of admissions to hospitals in the National Health Service (NHS) in England. The associated mortality of these patients has been quoted as approximately eight times higher than that of elective surgical admissions. This study used a modified Delphi approach to iden...
Article
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Background Abdominal wall hernia repair is one of the most commonly performed surgical procedures worldwide, yet despite this, there remains a lack of high-quality evidence to support best management. The aim of the study was to use a modified Delphi process to determine future research priorities in this field. Methods Stakeholders were invited b...
Article
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Background Early death after cancer surgery is higher in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) compared with in high-income countries, yet the impact of facility characteristics on early postoperative outcomes is unknown. The aim of this study was to examine the association between hospital infrastructure, resource availability, and proces...
Article
Admission procalcitonin measurements and microbiology results were available for 1040 hospitalized adults with coronavirus disease 2019 (from 48 902 included in the International Severe Acute Respiratory and Emerging Infections Consortium World Health Organization Clinical Characterisation Protocol UK study). Although procalcitonin was higher in ba...
Article
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Admission procalcitonin measurements and microbiology results were available for 1040 hospitalized adults with coronavirus disease 2019 (from 48 902 included in the International Severe Acute Respiratory and Emerging Infections Consortium World Health Organization Clinical Characterisation Protocol UK study). Although procalcitonin was higher in ba...
Article
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COVID-19 is clinically characterised by fever, cough, and dyspnoea. Symptoms affecting other organ systems have been reported. However, it is the clinical associations of different patterns of symptoms which influence diagnostic and therapeutic decision-making. In this study, we applied clustering techniques to a large prospective cohort of hospita...
Article
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Background Dexamethasone was the first intervention proven to reduce mortality in patients with COVID-19 being treated in hospital. We aimed to evaluate the adoption of corticosteroids in the treatment of COVID-19 in the UK after the RECOVERY trial publication on June 16, 2020, and to identify discrepancies in care. Methods We did an audit of clin...
Article
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Introduction The postoperative period represents a time where patients are at a high-risk of morbidity, which warrants effective surveillance. While digital health interventions (DHIs) for postoperative monitoring are promising, a coordinated, standardized and evidence-based approach regarding their implementation and evaluation is currently lackin...
Article
Background The complexity of pancreaticoduodenectomy and fear of morbidity, particularly postoperative pancreatic fistula, can be a barrier to surgical trainees gaining operative experience. This meta-analysis sought to compare the postoperative pancreatic fistula rate after pancreatoenteric anastomosis by trainees or established surgeons. Methods...
Article
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Preoperative undernutrition is a prognostic indicator for postoperative mortality and morbidity. Evidence suggests that treating undernutrition can improve surgical outcomes. This study explored the provision of nutritional screening, assessment and support on surgical cancer wards in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). This was a qualitative...
Article
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Background Acute kidney injury (AKI) is common in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). This study investigated adults hospitalized with COVID-19 and hypothesized that risk factors for AKI would include comorbidities and non-White race. Methods A prospective multicentre cohort study was performed using patients admitted to 254 UK hospitals with COVI...
Article
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The aim of the study is to validate the Russian version of the 4C Mortality Score scale and evaluate its accuracy in predicting the outcomes of severe COVID-19. Material and methods. The staff of the Center for Validation of International Scales and Questionnaires of the Research Center of Neurology received official permission from the authors to...
Article
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Background Predicting bed occupancy for hospitalised patients with COVID-19 requires understanding of length of stay (LoS) in particular bed types. LoS can vary depending on the patient’s “bed pathway” - the sequence of transfers of individual patients between bed types during a hospital stay. In this study, we characterise these pathways, and thei...
Article
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Purpose: To prospectively validate two risk scores to predict mortality (4C Mortality) and in-hospital deterioration (4C Deterioration) among adults hospitalised with COVID-19. Methods: Prospective observational cohort study of adults (age ≥18 years) with confirmed or highly suspected COVID-19 recruited into the International Severe Acute Respir...
Article
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Surgical site infections (SSI) cause substantial morbidity and pose a burden to acute healthcare services after surgery. We aimed to investigate whether a smartphone-delivered wound assessment tool can expedite diagnosis and treatment of SSI after emergency abdominal surgery. This single-blinded randomised control trial (NCT02704897) enroled adult...
Article
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SARS-CoV-2 has been associated with an increased rate of venous thromboembolism in critically ill patients.Since surgical patients are already at higher risk of venous thromboembolism than general populations, thisstudy aimed to determine if patients with peri-operative or prior SARS-CoV-2 were at further increased risk ofvenous thromboembolism. We...
Article
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There is little evidence around the potentially protective role of previous Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccination on postoperative mortality in patients with perioperative SARS-CoV-2 vaccination. Prior BCG vaccination did not protect SARS-CoV-2 infected patients against postoperative pulmonary complications and 30-day mortality.
Article
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Complications following surgery are common and frequently occur the following discharge. Mobile and wearable digital health interventions (DHI) provide an opportunity to monitor and support patients during their postoperative recovery. Lack of high-quality evidence is often cited as a barrier to DHI implementation. This review captures and appraise...
Article
Background Multiple risk scores claim to predict the probability of postoperative pancreatic fistula (POPF) after pancreatoduodenectomy. However, it is unclear which scores have undergone external validation, and which score is the most accurate. Objective To identify risk scores for POPF, and assess the clinical validity of these scores. Methods...
Article
Aims Delphi methodology can be used to achieve consensus opinion amongst experts in a particular field. This study used a modified Delphi approach to identify research priorities in emergency general surgery (EGS). The aim was to establish a research agenda using a formal consensus-based approach in an effort to identify questions relevant to EGS t...
Article
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Background Acute kidney injury (AKI) is common in COVID-19. This study investigated adults hospitalised with COVID-19 and hypothesised that risk factors for AKI would include co-morbidities and non-white race. Methods A prospective multicentre cohort study was performed using patients admitted to 254 UK hospitals with COVID-19 between January 17th...
Preprint
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Objective Identifying phenotypes and pathology from free text is an essential task for clinical work and research. Natural language processing (NLP) is a key tool for processing free text at scale. Developing and validating NLP models requires labelled data. Labels are generated through time-consuming and repetitive manual annotation and are hard t...
Article
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Background COVID-19 is a multisystem disease and patients who survive might have in-hospital complications. These complications are likely to have important short-term and long-term consequences for patients, health-care utilisation, health-care system preparedness, and society amidst the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Our aim was to characterise the e...
Article
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Background The ISARIC prospective multinational observational study is the largest cohort of hospitalized patients with COVID-19. We present relationships of age, sex, and nationality to presenting symptoms. Methods International, prospective observational study of 60 109 hospitalized symptomatic patients with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 recruit...
Poster
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Title: Trials and tribulations: educational impact from student-led recruitment in a surgical trial. Aim: To understand the effect of and derive recommendations for the involvement of medical students in clinical trial recruitment. Methods: Tracking wound infection with smartphone technology (TWIST) was a randomised controlled trial enrolling adu...
Article
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Inherited genetic factors can influence the severity of COVID-19, but the molecular explanation underpinning a genetic association is often unclear. Intracellular antiviral defenses can inhibit the replication of viruses and reduce disease severity. To better understand the antiviral defenses relevant to COVID-19, we used interferon-stimulated gene...
Article
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The bat connection The heterogeneity of COVID-19 makes it challenging to predict the course of infection in an individual. Upon virus infection, interferons (IFNs) generate the initial signals for cellular defenses. Knowing that defects in IFN signaling are associated with more severe COVID-19, Wickenhagen et al . used IFN-stimulated gene expressio...
Conference Paper
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Introduction Surgical site infections (SSI) complicate 2%–10% of general surgery cases, and represent a significant burden on acute healthcare services. We aim to investigate if a smartphone-delivered wound assessment tool results in earlier treatment. Method This parallel, single-blinded randomised control trial enrolled adult emergency abdominal...
Article
Introduction Malnutrition is a key priority on the global health agenda, yet the impact of nutritional state on cancer surgery across income strata remains poorly described. This study aimed to determine the effect of malnutrition on early postoperative outcomes following elective surgery for colorectal or gastric cancer. Method Multicentre, inter...
Article
Full-text available
Background: COVID-19 is a multisystem disease and patients who survive might have in-hospital complications. These complications are likely to have important short-term and long-term consequences for patients, health-care utilisation, health-care system preparedness, and society amidst the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Our aim was to characterise the...
Article
Full-text available
To support the global restart of elective surgery, data from an international prospective cohort study of 8492 patients (69 countries) was analysed using artificial intelligence (machine learning techniques) to develop a predictive score for mortality in surgical patients with SARS-CoV-2. We found that patient rather than operation factors were the...
Article
Background Early in the pandemic it was suggested that pre-existing use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) could lead to increased disease severity in patients with COVID-19. NSAIDs are an important analgesic, particularly in those with rheumatological disease, and are widely available to the general public without prescription. Evid...
Article
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Background Mortality rates in hospitalised patients with COVID-19 in the UK appeared to decline during the first wave of the pandemic. We aimed to quantify potential drivers of this change and identify groups of patients who remain at high risk of dying in hospital. Methods In this multicentre prospective observational cohort study, the Internation...
Article
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Background Microbiological characterisation of co-infections and secondary infections in patients with COVID-19 is lacking, and antimicrobial use is high. We aimed to describe microbiologically confirmed co-infections and secondary infections, and antimicrobial use, in patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19. Methods The International Severe Ac...
Article
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Background Microbiological characterisation of co-infections and secondary infections in patients with COVID-19 is lacking, and antimicrobial use is high. We aimed to describe microbiologically confirmed co-infections and secondary infections, and antimicrobial use, in patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19. Methods The International Severe A...
Article
Full-text available
Background Early in the pandemic it was suggested that pre-existing use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) could lead to increased disease severity in patients with COVID-19. NSAIDs are an important analgesic, particularly in those with rheumatological disease, and are widely available to the general public without prescription. Evid...
Article
Full-text available
Background Mortality rates in hospitalised patients with COVID-19 in the UK appeared to decline during the first wave of the pandemic. We aimed to quantify potential drivers of this change and identify groups of patients who remain at high risk of dying in hospital. Methods In this multicentre prospective observational cohort study, the Internatio...
Article
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p> Background: Despite older adults (65 years and above) accounting for almost half of emergency laparotomies and an ageing population, there remains a paucity of research in the older adult emergency surgery population. One key clinical area that requires urgent assessment is the older patient who presents with acute abdominal pathology treatable...
Article
Background Studies of patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19 have found varying mortality outcomes associated with underlying respiratory conditions and inhaled corticosteroid use. Using data from a national, multicentre, prospective cohort, we aimed to characterise people with COVID-19 admitted to hospital with underlying respiratory disease,...
Article
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Introduction Prehabilitation in colorectal surgery is evolving and may minimise postoperative morbidity and mortality. With many different healthcare professionals contributing to the prehabilitation literature, there is significant variation in reported primary endpoints that restricts comparison. In addition, there has been limited work on patien...
Article
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Background 80% of individuals with cancer will require a surgical procedure, yet little comparative data exist on early outcomes in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs). We compared postoperative outcomes in breast, colorectal, and gastric cancer surgery in hospitals worldwide, focusing on the effect of disease stage and complications on...