Cancer is the commonest cause of death among children and young people in the UK and is associated with significant long-term morbidity. Unfortunately, the UK lags behind other high-income countries in the time it takes to diagnose childhood, teenage and young adult (TYA) cancer and this delay worsens patient outcomes.
One of the challenges in diagnosing childhood and TYA cancer is its relative rarity and non-specific presentation, and awareness campaigns have been run in an effort to improve recognition of cancer signs among health professionals. Although this resulted in improvements for certain types of cancers in children and TYA, the national time-to-diagnosis targets have still not been reached in all cancers for all age groups.
Dr Defne Saatci and Professor Julia Hippisley-Cox (Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences) have successfully applied for a Cancer Research UK Early Detection and Diagnosis Project Award to accelerate diagnosis of childhood and TYA cancer. They will use the QResearch database, the UK’s largest GP electronic health record database, covering 20% of the UK population and linked to national cancer, hospital and mortality registries. QResearch data will be explored to identify the early symptoms and signs associated with a subsequent diagnosis of the commonest childhood and TYA cancers (acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, lymphomas and central nervous system tumours) and this information will be used to develop a risk prediction tool for GP use.
By increasing the understanding about the clinical features associated with childhood and TYA cancers and developing this risk prediction tool for use in primary care, this study aims to make significant advancements in childhood and TYA cancer diagnosis and outcomes.
If you are an Oxford-based researcher thinking of applying for external early detection funding, please get in touch with the OxCODE Scientific Coordinator who can help to coordinate your application.