Category Archives: Early detection

Why are oesophageal cancer rates going up in men?

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Endoscopy

Oesophageal cancer rates are on the rise

Many people have never even heard of cancer of the oesophagus – a form of cancer affecting the pipe that connects the mouth to the top of the stomach.

Yet rates of this cancer are on the rise.

According to new figures we released today, the rise is most rapid in men – among whom a particular form of the disease, called adenocarcinoma, is one of the fastest rising cancers in the UK.

But what’s causing this rise? And – most importantly – what can be done about it?

In this post, we’ll look at what’s going on, and whether our lifestyles might be behind the rise.

And we’ll also meet a heroic team of marathon-running medics who are doing everything they can to change the picture for patients diagnosed with oesophageal cancer – one of the hardest forms of cancer to treat successfully, but one which generally gets little attention in the media.

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Detecting cancer early – the second NAEDI Conference

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Mike Richards giving a talk

Professor Mike Richards speaking at the first NAEDI conference in 2008

Diagnosing a cancer early is one of the factors that can make the biggest difference in its successful treatment.

Launched in 2008, the National Awareness and Early Diagnosis Initiative (NAEDI) is a partnership between Cancer Research UK and the Department of Health that aims to tackle diagnosing and detecting cancers early.

One of its key aims is to jump-start research into this crucial area, and last month, a diverse group of researchers descended on the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute for the second NAEDI research conference, to discuss different aspects of research on early cancer diagnosis.

Following an introduction and welcome from Cancer Research UK’s chief executive, Dr Harpal Kumar, the conference kicked off with a fascinating talk from US researcher Dr Christine Berg, the lead investigator on the USA’s national lung cancer screening trial.

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The challenge of spotting cancers in children

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Georgia Hillman

Georgia was diagnosed with Wilms’ tumour

One Sunday evening in 2008, after giving her one-year-old daughter a bath, Ruth Hillman noticed Georgia’s tummy felt firmer than usual.

Alarm bells began to ring.

By Wednesday, after seeing several different doctors, Ruth and her husband Ben were told Georgia had a tumour. Further tests showed that it was a Wilms’ tumour – a form of kidney cancer – and Georgia needed intensive treatment.

Georgia’s story is ultimately a happy one – she’s now a healthy five-year-old, and recently started school. Her treatment – surgery and chemotherapy – means she’s among some 33,000 people alive in the UK today who beat cancer in childhood. Although progress in some cancer types has been slow, overall survival rates are now at an all-time high.

But could they be even higher? In the end, Georgia was diagnosed in time, but others aren’t so fortunate. And, as in adults, cancer treatments in children are generally less effective when the disease is spotted late.

They’re also often more intense. As a result, survivors can have long-term disabilities – and with more lives being saved, this has meant an ever-greater focus on how we manage cancers in the youngest members of society.

The problem is that cancers in children are rare, and their symptoms are hard to tell apart from a whole range of more common problems. The average GP will only ever see a single case in their entire career – if at all. And for parents, they may never suspect that an ache or a pain could be something more sinister than childhood’s day-to-day rough and tumble.

In this blog post, we’ll take a look at the issues surrounding spotting cancers in children, and what’s going on to try to improve things.

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Cancer care in the new NHS in England

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Changes are afoot in the NHS – what will they mean for cancer patients?

As of Monday (1st April) the Government’s reform of the NHS became a reality, with the Health and Social Care Act coming into force.

We’ve blogged a number of times about our views on the reforms as they took shape over the last couple of years, and more recently about our report on the state of cancer services during transition to the new system.

But now that the reforms are actually in place, and more of the detail has emerged, we thought we would take this opportunity to look at how the new NHS will work for cancer patients.

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New bowel screening test introduced in England

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Patient and Doctor

A new addition to the bowel screening programme is being rolled out

Back in December we wrote about Jeremy Hunt’s announcement that six centres in England would start using Bowel Scope Screening (BSS, also known as flexi-scope or flexible sigmoidoscopy) as part of their bowel screening programme in 2013.

This week, 55 year olds in the South of Tyne region (which includes Gateshead, Sunderland and South Tyneside) received the first wave of letters inviting them to be screened.

This is great news. Cancer Research UK has been involved in Bowel Scope Screening from the beginning – we co-funded a 16 year study  which showed that it cuts deaths by over 40 per cent, and – unlike the current test – can actually prevent a third of bowel cancers among those screened.

As a result, it has the potential to save thousands of lives from bowel cancer each year.

As soon as the trial results were published in 2010, we said we wanted the Government to add BSS to the existing bowel screening programme, and later that year, they agreed, setting aside £60m to fund it.

Since then we’ve been calling for Bowel Scope Screening to start as soon as possible, so it’s fantastic to see it finally happen.

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Lung cancer in the UK – earlier diagnosis and better treatment are crucial

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Lung cancer

Lung cancer is often diagnosed at a late stage

We’ve blogged before about the International Cancer Benchmarking Partnership (ICBP) – a collaboration between researchers trying to understand how and why cancer survival varies between different countries.

Earlier this month, they looked into differences in attitudes to, and awareness of, cancer and its symptoms (read more in this post).

And last year, they published work looking at differences in ovarian cancer survival rates, (which you can read about here).

As we explained at the time, this research showed that late diagnosis is unlikely to be the main reason for the poor UK ovarian cancer survival.

Instead, the ICBP found that UK women with advanced disease (i.e. that has spread) had worse chances of survival than those in other countries. Differences treatment in the UK may be contributing to this lower survival.

Today, the ICBP published a new paper looking at lung cancer survival. And again, it looks as though lack of treatment could be among the reasons behind the UK’s poor survival, but they also found evidence that late diagnosis is a contributing factor.

UK lung cancer patients also seem to be less likely to live for one year or longer after diagnosis than their counterparts in Australia, Norway, Canada and Denmark.

Let’s have a look at the details.

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