DYK in 1957, Glasgow, Scotland ran the largest ever screening campaign against #tuberculosis?
715,000 people (76% of entire adult population) were X-rayed over just 5 weeks!
In a new study, we looked at the long-term impact of this campaign. https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1004448
#episky #idsky 🧪🛟
715,000 people (76% of entire adult population) were X-rayed over just 5 weeks!
In a new study, we looked at the long-term impact of this campaign. https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1004448
#episky #idsky 🧪🛟
Comments
The campaign was supported by >12,000 Glasgow volunteers, and 37 X-ray vans came to the city from across the UK.
This amazing archive video shows the huge community mobilisation to support.
https://www.britishpathe.com/asset/61468/
Indeed in 1974, WHO recommended “the policy of indiscriminate tuberculosis case finding by mobile mass radiography should now be abandoned”.
But this ignores huge amounts of evidence from 1930s-1960s.
We also digitised a 1951 map drawn by Sir John Bartholomew FRSG held in the City of Glasgow Archives to get all 37 Ward boundaries.
We compared to a counterfactual where the campaign had not happened.
1. CNRs doubled in 1957 & reduced by 35% in the year after.
2. Before, CNRs reducing at only 2.3% per year. But after they reduced at 5.4% per year.
3. Effects consistent across all 37 wards.
4. 4599 pulmonary TB notifications were averted across the city between 1958-1963.
This suggests that thresholds could be lowered and still achieve large benefits.
As you say there may have been other concurrent interventions but i thought this plot was still pretty compelling, including the additional cases found by ACF. In teaching slides...
Agree that the magnitude & consistency of effects across wards are pretty compelling.
My gut feeling is that really high coverage and linkage to testing & treatment led to lots of early TB being detected and treated, hugely shortening the overall infectious duration.
Now, ACF coverage (% of pop screened and linked) is often v low. ACT3 did well with a test for subclinical TB (Xpert 4 all) but 💵 💵 💵. CXR makes sense to me
We discuss these issues in detail in this recent review:
https://bmcglobalpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s44263-024-00042-9
I was wondering, do you know what the immediate next steps were for the people who screened positive? Did they usually receive particular antibiotics, would they be isolated, or were there other measures?