Programme News
November 2019
Congratulations to the Paediatric Adolescent Wildtype & Syndromic GastroIntestinal Stromal Tumour (PAWS-GIST) team who recently won an NCRI Collaboration Award. The award recognises the European multidisciplinary team of patients, doctors, specialists and researchers who are collaborating to improve treatments and working to find a cure for PAWS-GIST cancer.
Dr Iain Frame, CEO of NCRI said: "We are delighted to recognise and honour the achievements made by these individuals and teams who have worked effortlessly in the community to help accelerate progress in cancer research for the benefit of patients and society."
Aerodigestive programme members Dr Ramesh Bulusu (Consultant Clinical Oncologist), Mr Richard Hardwick (Upper GI Tract Surgeon) and Dr Olivier Giger (Lecturer and Honorary Consultant in Histopathology) are all part of the PAWS-GIST team.
August 2019
The thoracic oncology research team at Papworth celebrated a big milestone this week, with the 500th participant recruited to the the Lung Cancer Indicator Detection (LuCID) study. The LUCID study is examining whether exhaled breath can be used to diagnose lung cancer at an earlier stage. The first Royal Papworth patient joined the study in January 2016, and people will continue to be recruited until the end of 2020. The 500 Royal Papworth participants are part of 2,300 across Europe, with capacity to recruit up to 4,000.
Robert Rintoul, Aerodigestive Programme Leader and Chief Investigator for the LuCID study, said: “This is a fantastic achievement by the team, with Royal Papworth now accounting for more than a fifth of the total recruits. We know that patients diagnosed at stage one lung cancer have an approximately 80% chance of living for more than five years, whereas at stage four this is just 1%. Working in conjunction with Owlstone Medical, this trial could therefore help to improve outcomes for patients in the future.”
April 2019
Congratulations to Aerodigestive Cancer Programme member Nicola Fearnhead who has been appointed as new Surgical Co-Lead for the National Bowel Cancer Audit (NBOCA).
Nicola is a Consultant Colorectal Surgeon based at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge. She chaired the Clinical Advisory Group for NBOCA from 2014 – 2018, and was Clinical Lead for Clinical Outcome Publication (COP) from 2014 – 2016. She is currently President-Elect of the Association of Coloproctology of Great Britain & Ireland (ACPGBI), and co-leads the Pelican Cancer Foundation’s IMPACT (Improving Management of Patients with Advanced Colorectal Tumours) initiative.
NBOCA Oncology co-lead Mike Braun says “I’m delighted Nicola Fearnhead has been appointed as co-lead. She has been involved with the audit Clinical Advisory Group for a number of years and is committed to developing NBOCA and improving outcomes in colorectal cancer. I’m sure she will provide great leadership within the team.”