Wendy Sheila Atkin OBE FMedSci (née Green; 5 April 1947 – 2 October 2018)^[1][2] was Professor of Gastrointestinal Epidemiology at Imperial College London.

Early life and education

Aitken was born in London on 5 April 1947 to Gella (née Binder) and David Green.^[3] She studied pharmacy at the University of London gaining a bachelor's degree in 1968.^[1][3] She studied public health at Columbia University, which she graduated in 1985 with a Master of Public Health (MPH) degree in 1984.^[4] She joined University College London for her graduate studies, where she researched the long-term risk of colorectal cancer following the removal of adenomas and was awarded a PhD in 1991.^[5][4]

Career and research

Atkin joined the Colorectal Cancer Unit at Cancer Research UK in St Mark's Hospital, and was made deputy director in 1997.^[4] She was made a 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.^[6][7] She compared the screening to a Faecal occult blood (FOB) test.^[8] In 2008 she moved to St Mary's Hospital, London, where she established the Cancer Screening and Prevention Research Group.^[4] The group researches bowel cancer and, ultimately, aims to reduce the number of people who die from the disease.^[9] Their 2010 paper outlining the results of the UK Flexible Sigmoidoscopy Screening Trial was the most frequently cited paper in The Lancet that year.^{[10][11][12][13][14][15]} The landmark study was a randomised controlled trial of almost 400,000 adults across 14 areas in the UK.^[16][17] If there were any polyps, people were referred for a colonoscopy.^[18] The strategy was rolled out by the UK National Screening Committee in 2011 and was expected to achieved complete population coverage in 2016.^[19][20] This was achieved with a £60 million investment from the UK government. It's estimated to prevent 5,000 cancer diagnoses and 3,000 deaths a year.^[19] They found an increased risk in bowel polyps from eating red meat.^[21] They examined the incidence and mortality for the following 17 years, finding that people involved in the screening had a 41% lower mortality.^[22][23][24] The bowel cancer screening test BowelScope can prevent 35% of bowel cancers.^[25][26]

Atkin went on to create a Special Interest Group (SIG) on Gastrointestinal and Abdominal Radiologists 1 (SIGGAR1), which analysed the effectiveness of virtual colonoscopy.^[27][28] They found it was less invasive and more effective at finding precancerous polyps and bowel cancer.^[29] She researched the optimum timing of surveillance strategies for people who were at high risk of bowel cancer.^[29] Atkin established a patient-friendly process that would invite, screen and follow-up the whole population.^[30] She found that patients at risk of developing bowel cancer benefitted significantly from a follow-up colonoscopy.^[31][32][33]

She served as an expert advisor for the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) Guidelines for Colonoscopic Surveillance.^[4] She served on several advisory committees and boards.^[13] She retired from Imperial College London in August 2018 and was made Emeritus Professor.^[9] She died on 2 October 2018.^[1][2]

References