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Wendy Sheila Atkin OBE FMedSci (née Green; 5 April 1947 – 2 October 2018) 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. She studied pharmacy at the University of London gaining a bachelor's degree in 1968. She studied public health at Columbia University, which she graduated in 1985 with a Master of Public Health (MPH) degree in 1984. 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.

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. 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. She compared the screening to a Faecal occult blood (FOB) test. In 2008 she moved to St Mary's Hospital, London, where she established the Cancer Screening and Prevention Research Group. The group researches bowel cancer and, ultimately, aims to reduce the number of people who die from the disease. Their 2010 paper outlining the results of the UK Flexible Sigmoidoscopy Screening Trial was the most frequently cited paper in The Lancet that year. The landmark study was a randomised controlled trial of almost 400,000 adults across 14 areas in the UK. If there were any polyps, people were referred for a colonoscopy. The strategy was rolled out by the UK National Screening Committee in 2011 and was expected to achieved complete population coverage in 2016. 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. They found an increased risk in bowel polyps from eating red meat. They examined the incidence and mortality for the following 17 years, finding that people involved in the screening had a 41% lower mortality. The bowel cancer screening test BowelScope can prevent 35% of bowel cancers.

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

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

Awards and honours

• 2015 Elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci)
• 2013 Appointed Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to Bowel Cancer Prevention in the 2013 Birthday Honours.
• 2012 Awarded the Bengt Ihre Medal by the Swedish Society of Medicine
• 2011 Awarded the President's Medal by the British Society of Gastroenterologists

References

1. ^ Warren, Penny (2018). "Wendy Atkin: epidemiologist who made an enormous contribution to bowel cancer prevention". BMJ: k4465. doi:10.1136/bmj.k4465. ISSN 0959-8138. S2CID 80809624.
2. ^ Anon (2018). "Obituary: Professor Wendy Atkin". imperial.ac.uk.
3. ^ "Atkin, Prof. Wendy Sheila, (born 5 April 1947), Professor of Gastrointestinal Epidemiology, Imperial College London, since 2004", Who's Who, Oxford University Press, 2016-12-01, doi:10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.u286505, ISBN 978-0-19-954088-4, retrieved 2021-07-12
4. ^ "Home - Emeritus Professor Wendy Atkin". www.imperial.ac.uk. Retrieved 2018-10-06.
5. Atkin, Wendy Sheila (1991). Risk of subsequent colon and rectal cancer after removal of adenomas from the rectosigmoid. london.ac.uk (PhD thesis). University College London. OCLC 940329454. Copac 34557568.
6. Jarvis, Martin (2015-11-24). "Jane Wardle obituary". The Guardian. Retrieved 2018-10-06.
7. Atkin, Wendy. "UK Flexible Sigmoidoscopy Screening" (PDF). National Archives. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2015-05-06. Retrieved 2018-10-06.
8. "Bowel cancer success predicted". 2003-03-31. Retrieved 2018-10-06.
9. ^ "Professor Wendy Atkin Retires - Surgery and Cancer Blog". Surgery and Cancer Blog. 2018-08-29. Retrieved 2018-10-06.
10. "Bowel test 'slashes cancer deaths'". nhs.uk. 2010-04-28. Retrieved 2018-10-06.
11. "Bowel screening 'revolution' could slash cancer rate". New Scientist. Retrieved 2018-10-06.
12. Blom, Johannes (2010). "Once-only flexible sigmoidoscopy screening for adults aged 55–64 years old reduces the incidence of colorectal cancer and colorectal cancer deaths". BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine. 15 (5): 155–6. doi:10.1136/ebm1104. ISSN 2515-446X. PMID 20688846. S2CID 206927829.
13. ^ "Honours and Memberships - Emeritus Professor Wendy Atkin". www.imperial.ac.uk. Retrieved 2018-10-06.
14. "Boost for bowel cancer spending". BBC News. 2010-10-03. Retrieved 2018-10-06.
15. "Inclusion of flexible sigmoidoscopy in the UK Bowel Cancer Screening Programme". www.ucl.ac.uk. 2014-12-12. Retrieved 2018-10-06.
16. "REF Case study search". impact.ref.ac.uk. Retrieved 2018-10-07.
17. "Bowel test 'slashes cancer deaths'". nhs.uk. 2010-04-28. Retrieved 2018-10-07.
18. Grice, Elizabeth (2010-12-06). "On the trail of a common killer". The Daily Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 2018-10-07.
19. ^ "Professor Wendy Atkin". acmedsci.ac.uk. Academy of Medical Sciences. Retrieved 2018-10-06.
20. Atkin, Wendy S. (2006). "Impending or pending? The national bowel cancer screening programme". BMJ. 332 (7544): 742. doi:10.1136/bmj.38797.494757.47. ISSN 0959-8138. PMC 1420723. PMID 16554333.
21. "EPIC-Norfolk Collaborators: Researchers". www.srl.cam.ac.uk. Retrieved 2018-10-06.
22. Atkin, Wendy; Wooldrage, Kate; Parkin, D Maxwell; Kralj-Hans, Ines; MacRae, Eilidh; Shah, Urvi; Duffy, Stephen; Cross, Amanda J (2017). "Long term effects of once-only flexible sigmoidoscopy screening after 17 years of follow-up: the UK Flexible Sigmoidoscopy Screening randomised controlled trial". The Lancet. 389 (10076): 1299–1311. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(17)30396-3. ISSN 0140-6736. PMC 6168937. PMID 28236467.
23. "A one-off bowel scope helps prevent bowel cancer, but it's taking time to reach everyone eligible". Cancer Research UK - Science blog. Retrieved 2018-10-06.
24. "One-off bowel scope cuts cancer risk for at least 17 years". www.nihr.ac.uk. Retrieved 2018-10-06.
25. "New screening test cuts bowel cancer risk by a third, study finds". The Guardian. Press Association. 2017-02-22. Retrieved 2018-10-06.
26. Healthcare, Imperial College (2015-02-06), Bowel Cancer and the work of Professor Wendy Atkin at Imperial College London, retrieved 2018-10-06
27. Atkin, Wendy S (2011). "Study of colonoscopic surveillance intervals after removal of colorectal adenomas". doi:10.1186/ISRCTN02411483. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
28. "CT scans are the best alternative to colonoscopy to investigate bowel cancer". Imperial News. Imperial News, Imperial College, London. Retrieved 2018-10-06.
29. ^ "Research - Emeritus Professor Wendy Atkin". www.imperial.ac.uk. Retrieved 2018-10-06.
30. "Developing the bowel cancer screening programme – Imperial College London". The Russell Group. Retrieved 2018-10-06.
31. "Follow-up colonoscopies associated with a significantly lower incidence of bowel cancer". ScienceDaily. Retrieved 2018-10-06.
32. "Colonoscopy lowers rates of bowel cancer in some patients with intermediate risk polyps". Bowel Cancer UK. Retrieved 2018-10-07.
33. "This one-off bowel cancer test could save thousands of lives". Good Housekeeping. 2017-02-24. Retrieved 2018-10-07.
34. ^ "Principal Investigator". www.csprg.org.uk. Retrieved 2018-10-06.
35. "Queen's birthday honours list 2013: OBE". The Guardian. 2013-06-14. Retrieved 2018-10-06.
36. "Bowel Cancer Screening: 23 Nov 2011: House of Commons debates - TheyWorkForYou". TheyWorkForYou. Retrieved 2018-10-06.

• Academics of Imperial College London
• Alumni of University College London
• Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health alumni
• Fellows of the Academy of Medical Sciences (United Kingdom)
• Officers of the Order of the British Empire
• British women epidemiologists
• 1947 births
• 2018 deaths