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Three out of 10 people who suffer a minor stroke or a “mini-stroke” don’t get medical help in time, upping their likelihood of going on to have a major stroke, new research shows.

While the importance of rapid treatment for stroke is now widely recognized, less is known about whether people who suffer mini-strokes get prompt care.

People who have these mini-strokes — what doctors call transient ischemic attacks, or TIAs – are now known to be at high risk of full-fledged strokes in the following hours and days, Dr. Arvind Chandratheva of the University of Oxford in the UK and colleagues point out in the journal Stroke. What’s more, it’s fairly easy to identify who among these patients is at highest risk, and starting preventive treatments early is “highly effective.”

The symptoms of a TIA are the same as those of a stroke; the big difference is that they’re temporary. Symptoms can include weakness or an inability to move all or part of one side of the body; feelings of numbness or tingling on one side; visual disturbances; trouble speaking and understanding others; and dizziness and fainting.

Current guidelines state that people should see a doctor within 24 hours of having a TIA or minor stroke. To investigate whether this is happening, Chandratheva and his colleagues surveyed 1,000 consecutive TIA or stroke patients participating in a large study of heart attack, stroke, and other acute events possibly related to a blocked blood vessel.

Among the patients who had TIAs, 459 in all, 67 percent sought medical help within 24 hours, and 47 percent did so within three hours, the researchers found. Among the 541 patients who had minor strokes, 74 percent got medical help within a day, and 46 percent did so within three hours. Three-quarters of the study participants went to their primary care physician first.

There were 129 patients who had a recurrent stroke after their initial TIA or minor stroke; 30 percent had not sought treatment before having a second stroke.

Certain factors like incorrect recognition of symptoms were associated with delays in treatment among TIA patients, the researchers found, but a person’s socioeconomic status, age, or gender had no effect on whether they delayed seeking treatment.

More public education is needed, the researchers conclude, both to help people recognize symptoms of TIA and minor stroke and to understand the need for quick medical attention.

“Without more effective public education,” they conclude, “the full potential of acute prevention will not be realized.”

Preventing human papillomavirus (HPV) infection may be one way to slow the HIV/AIDS epidemic, according to a new study that found that HPV-positive men are at greater risk for HIV infection than those not infected with HPV.

Researchers looked at 2,168 men in Kenya, aged 18 to 24, who were uncircumcised, did not have HIV and were sexually active. The men were tested for HPV infections at the start of the study and over 24 months. Most of the men were followed-up for 42 months.

At the start of the study, about half (1,089) of the men were infected with HPV on the skin of their penis. After 42 months, 5.8 percent of these HPV-positive men were HIV positive, compared to 3.7 percent of men who didn’t have HPV.

The findings were released online April 23 in advance of publication in the June 1 print issue of the Journal of Infectious Diseases.

“Even when we controlled for circumcision status, herpes and other sexual and sociodemographic risk factors, men infected with HPV at the first study visit were at greater risk for HIV infection than men without HPV,” study lead author Jennifer S. Smith, a research associate professor of epidemiology in the Gillings School of Global Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said in a news release.

“If our findings are confirmed in other studies, then HPV prevention could become an effective tool for HIV prevention,” she added.

Smith noted that developing “a vaccine to prevent HIV is the greatest hope for curbing the world’s AIDS pandemic, but so far there is no such vaccine. However, there is a vaccine to prevent specific types of HPV infection, and vaccinating young men before they become sexually active could potentially help prevent the spread of HIV.”

SOURCE: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, news release.

Noninvasive stool DNA testing can detect two types of colorectal precancers and could play a larger role in colon cancer prevention, say two new studies.

Compared with widely used fecal blood tests, stool DNA testing has higher detection rates for curable stage colorectal cancer and for common precancerous polyps (adenomas), according to the Mayo Clinic-led research teams.

The DNA stool test methods were developed at the Mayo Clinic. Some of the study authors and the Mayo Clinic have a financial interest related to technology used with this research.

The first study found that stool DNA testing detected five out of five cases of colon cancer and four out of five cases of a precancerous lesion called dysplasia in 10 patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).

“This study shows that cancer and precancer in IBD can be detected noninvasively,” senior investigator Dr. David Ahlquist said in a Mayo news release. “The 90 percent detection rate by stool DNA testing is remarkable. It’s important for people with IBD because they are at much higher risk for colorectal cancer than the general population. Given the limitations of colonoscopies in detecting these lesions, stool DNA testing could play a complementary role to improve the effectiveness of cancer surveillance.”

In the second study, the researchers found that stool DNA testing had a success rate of 71 percent in detecting serrated colorectal polyps, compared to a 7 percent detection rate with fecal blood tests.

Serrated colorectal polyps, which are believed to be the forerunner in about 30 percent of colon cancer cases, can be difficult to detect using most types of colorectal cancer screening. Unlike common polyps, they tend to be flat and the same color as the colon lining.

The studies are slated to be presented on Monday and Tuesday at the annual meeting of the American Gastroenterological Association.

“Detection of these important types of precancer by stool DNA testing offers promise in our efforts to more effectively and affordably prevent colorectal cancer. However, findings from both pilot studies need to be corroborated in larger studies,” Ahlquist said.

SOURCE: Mayo Clinic, news release.