Articles by author: Brock University

• National study confirms benefits of Brock-created lung cancer risk prediction model

  Wednesday, October 18, 2017 | By Brock University

  MEDIA RELEASE: 18 October 2017 – R00188

  A lung cancer prediction model developed by a Brock University scientist is highly effective in catching the disease in its early stages when combined with screening and follow-up, says a new national study.

  Brock Epidemiologist Martin Tammemägi led a team of researchers from across the country in a first-of-its-kind study that recruited people for lung cancer screening based on the results of his lung cancer risk prediction model.

  “We wanted to demonstrate that using the risk prediction model for enrolling people into the screening program was going to be efficient and successful and in fact, that’s what we showed,” says the professor in the Department of Health Sciences.

  In the study published Oct. 18 in the journal Lancet Oncology, the research team recruited 2,537 participants from eight study centres across Canada between September 2008 and December 2010.

  The participants, current and former smokers between the ages of 50 and 75, were identified to be at risk for developing lung cancer after filling out Tammemägi’s risk prediction calculator.

  They were offered computed tomography (CT scan) lung screening at the start of the study, after one year, after four years and with additional follow-ups.

  Participants also filled out questionnaires measuring their quality of life.

  Lung cancers were detected in 6.5 per cent of the participants. Of those, 75 per cent of these lung cancers were Stage 1 or Stage 2.

  “We followed individuals on average for five-and-a-half years to see if they developed lung cancer and in fact, we found more lung cancers than expected,” says Tammemägi. “The prediction model is a tool that is very successful at identifying individuals at risk of developing lung cancer at an early, curable stage, so that is good news.”

  Building on earlier efforts in the U.S., Tammemägi’s model uses a wide range of factors — such as smoking status, intensity and duration, age, Body Mass Index and family history of lung cancer — along with mathematical equations, to predict the risk of an individual getting lung cancer.

  The article, titled Participant Selection for Lung Cancer Screening by Risk Modeling – The Prospective Pan-Canadian Study, says the team’s findings have broad “public health and clinic implications.

  “More accurate selection of high-risk individuals for lung cancer screening appears to improve cost-effectiveness,” says the study.

  The study also found that people are less anxious about undergoing CT scanning than researchers thought they would be.

  Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in North America and in many other countries. Five-year survival rates for lung cancer are only about 17 per cent. This is because lung cancer is usually diagnosed after symptoms have appeared and the disease is at such an advanced stage that it is no longer amenable to surgical cure.

  Research has shown that if the lung cancer is detected early when it is localized, it can often be completely removed surgically and the survival rates are much higher.

  For more information or for assistance arranging interviews:

  * Dan Dakin, Media Relations Officer, Brock University ddakin@brocku.ca, 905-688-5550 x5353 or 905-347-1970

  Brock University Marketing and Communications has a full-service studio where we can provide high definition video and broadcast-quality audio.

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  Categories: Media releases

• Brock research aims to help law enforcement better detect deception

  Tuesday, October 17, 2017 | By Brock University

  17 October 2017 – R00187

  Michael Logue wants to know if you’re telling the truth.

  Logue recently graduated with his PhD in psychology from Brock University after pursuing his degree while also working as an officer with the Hamilton Police Service.

  His PhD thesis included completing three studies to help determine if it’s possible to use verbal cues, rather than body language, to detect deception during a police interview.

  Logue said despite media portrayals showing significantly better results, “studies show that police officers, judges, psychologists and parole officers have a 54 to 57 per cent accuracy level in correctly determining if someone is telling the truth or lying,” Logue explains.

  He believes this is due in part to a reliance on ‘reading’ non-verbal cues, or body language, during interviews. His studies have focused instead on verbal indications of deception, using the theory of reality monitoring.

  “The idea is that when you experience an event, you experience it in context with sights, sounds, timing, spatial arrangements and your own ideas about what is happening,” says Logue. “People who are lying tend not to add these contextual cues. They tend to focus on the facts and on getting their story straight.”

  Existing research shows that using reality monitoring criteria to assess verbal cues could improve accuracy in detecting deception to between 64 and 71 per cent.

  But looking to improve that accuracy even more, Logue wondered if changing the focus of interviews from extracting confessions to gathering information would allow more time for contextual details to emerge when the truth was being told, or to fail to emerge when a fabrication was being passed off as the truth.

  “I believe that people who are telling the truth throughout an interview should offer even more information by the end of it, whereas a liar’s story will not increase in details and inconsistencies should emerge.”

  In his first study, using student participants in a controlled experiment, Logue was able to obtain an accuracy rate of 86.6 per cent in detecting deception. The second study resulted in 92.5 per cent accuracy.

  In the third study, Logue tried to determine if the personality traits of interviewees, such as psychopathy and dominance, might be linked to an increased ability to deceive the interviewers in his study. However, he found no evidence that such traits could help subjects beat the system.

  His supervisor, Angela Book, is an expert in psychopathy and said Logue’s research “points us in the right direction in terms of what strategies can be used to detect deception, even in people who may be more adept at deceiving others.

  “If these findings are replicated in real-world interrogations, his work will have a large impact both theoretically and practically,” says Book, the Associate Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences.

  Logue wants to help law enforcement officials be as efficient and effective as possible.

  “I want to develop a method of detecting deception that will be easy to use for officers of all experience levels.”

  The police won’t be the only people to benefit from their improved ability to detect lies.

  “Accurate lie detection is important in cases of guilty parties who are successful liars, but also for those individuals who may be determined to be deceptive by current methods, but who are actually telling the truth,” Logue says.

  For more information or for assistance arranging interviews:

  * Dan Dakin, Media Relations Officer, Brock University ddakin@brocku.ca, 905-688-5550 x5353 or 905-347-1970

  Brock University Marketing and Communications has a full-service studio where we can provide high definition video and broadcast-quality audio.

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  Categories: Media releases