Wendy Atkin

Wendy Sheila Atkin OBE (1947 - October 2, 2018)^[1] was an emeritus Professor of Gastrointestinal Epidemiology at Imperial College London.

Early life and education

Atkin studied public health at Columbia University, which she graduated in 1985.^[2] She joined University College London for her graduate studies, where she researched the long-term risk of colorectal cancer following the removal of adenomas.^[2]

Career

Atkin joined the Colorectal Cancer Unit at Cancer Research UK in St Mark's Hospital, and was made deputy director in 1997.^[2] She was made an senior lecturer at Imperial College London in 1997, reader in 2000 and professor in 2004.

From 1994 she worked with Jane Wardle on a trial of flexible sigmoidoscopy that included endoscopic examination of the colon, reporting that 40 % of colorectal cancers could be prevented by this intervention.^[3][4] She compared the screening to a Faecal occult blood (FOB) test.^[5] In 2008 she moved to St Mary's Hospital, London, where she established the Cancer Screening and Prevention Research Group.^[2] The group researches bowel cancer and, ultimately, aims to reduce the number of people who die from the disease.^[6] Their 2010 paper outlining the results of the UK Flexible Sigmoidoscopy Screening Trial was the most frequently cited paper in The Lancet that year.^{[7][8][9][10][11][12]} The landmark study was a randomised controlled trial of almost 400,000 adults across 14 areas in the UK.^[13][14] If there were any polyps, people were referred for a colonoscopy.^[15] The strategy was rolled out by the UK National Screening Committee in 2011 and achieved complete population coverage in 2016.^[16][17] This was achieved with a £60 million investment from the UK government. It is estimated to prevent 5,000 cancer diagnoses and 3,000 deaths a year.^[16] They found an increased risk in bowel polyps from eating red meat.^[18] They examined the incidence and mortality for the following 17 years, finding that people involved in the screening had a 41 % lower mortality.^[19][20][21] The bowel cancer screening test BowelScope can prevent 35 % of bowel cancers.^[22][23]

Atkin went on to create a Special Interest Group Gastrointestinal and Abdominal Radiologists 1 (SIGGAR1), which analysed the effectiveness of virtual colonoscopy.^[24][25] They found it was less invasive and more effective at finding precancerous polyps and bowel cancer.^[26] She researched the optimum timing of surveillance strategies for people who were at high risk of bowl cancer.^[26] Atkin established a patient-friendly process that would invite, screen and follow-up the whole population.^[27] She found that patients at risk of developing bowel cancer benefitted significantly from a follow-up colonoscopy.^[28][29][30]

In 2013 she was made an Order of the British Empire for services to Bowel Cancer Prevention.^[31] She was an expert advisor for the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence Guidelines for Colonoscopic Surveillance.^[2] She served on several advisory committees and boards.^[32] She retired from Imperial College London in August 2018 and became a was made Emeritus Professor.^[6] She died on October 2, 2018.

References