Cancer Awareness, Screening and Diagnostic Pathways Research Group

Funder: Yorkshire Cancer Research

Contact: Professor Una Macleod and Dr Alex Young

Catch-up Screen is a research project offering cervical screening to women in their 60s and 70s from a urine sample they can take themselves at home. The urine kit will be sent to selected women by post, with pre-paid return packaging included so that the urine sample can be posted directly to the laboratory for testing afterwards.

This additional “Catch-up Screen” is not normally offered by the NHS, so it provides an opportunity for an additional cervical screen without the need to visit a GP practice for a smear test. The project results will help the NHS to decide whether a catch-up urine test should be offered to all women in their 60s and 70s.

The Catch-up Screen project is being run in selected GP practices across Manchester and the Yorkshire and Humber regions. Eligible patients in these regions will be contacted by their GP practice and invited to take part. You cannot volunteer for this study.

Patients from participating GP practices may be invited to take part if they are aged between 60 and 79 and are no longer being invited for routine cervical screening as part of the NHS programme. Women cannot take part if they have had a hysterectomy which included the removal of their cervix.

The research project is sponsored by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM). Assistant Professor Clare Gilham and Professor Julian Peto from the LSHTM are leading this research in collaboration with Professor Emma Crosbie from the University of Manchester, and Dr Belinda Nedjai at Queen Mary University of London.

Find out more about the project.

Funding: Cancer Research UK

Contact: Professor Una Macleod

Cancer remains one of the UK’s biggest health issues, both in terms of morbidity and mortality. In recent years there has been increasing interest in the pathway to diagnosis, as international data have shown that one year survival figures for many cancers are poorer in the UK than in comparable countries. It is already well established that for the majority of cancers, diagnosis within the context of an emergency presentation results in poorer outcomes. The purpose of this study is to investigate what happens to patients in the period before presentation as an emergency on the ‘route to diagnosis’.

The overall aim of this study is to identify whether there are differences in pathway to diagnosis between patients who are diagnosed with lung or colorectal cancer during an emergency presentation compared to those diagnosed via the 2ww pathway. The data collection for this study has been completed and it is being written up for publication.

PhD student: Arwa Abdel Aal

Funder: Yorkshire Cancer Research

Supervisor: Professor Una Macleod

This PhD project aims to evaluate health inequalities in lung cancer screening across five different delivery models. Its primary aim is to gauge the inequalities in uptakes of lung cancer screening programmes by diverse socioeconomic groups and the consequent impact of such inequalities on overall health disparities. The research will conduct subgroup analyses using data from five distinct lung screening trials: the UK Lung Screening Trial (UKLS) and programmes in Liverpool, Manchester, Tameside, and Hull, considering variables such as age, the Indices of Multiple Deprivation (IMD), and gender.

The project's goals include evaluating the effect of a national rollout of these models through distributional cost-effectiveness analysis (DCEA). The overarching ambition is to analyse the effects of varying Lung Health Check (LHC) programme delivery models on population health

PhD student: Rebecca Price

Funder: Yorkshire Cancer Research

Start date: October 2020

Supervisors: Dr Charlotte Kelly (primary) and Professor Una Macleod (secondary)

Aim

To explore access to specialist cancer centres for patients in coastal areas, through an assessment of the psychosocial, socioeconomic, psychological and health outcomes.

Summary

Since the development of specialist cancer centres, the need to travel has become an increasing burden for some patients.

Using both qualitative and quantitative methods, this research will explore the travel experiences of patients undergoing cancer treatments, particularly in coastal communities, along with the psychosocial, socioeconomic and health implications.

Contact: Dr Charlotte Kelly

Funder: York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust

Patients who attend a GP with serious but nonspecific symptoms (SNSS) where cancer is suspected do not currently meet the criteria for site specific urgent referral for cancer.

The consequences of this are that they are more likely to have multiple healthcare visits and longer times to diagnosis than patients presenting with site specific symptoms.

This study will explore the GP referral behavior and the use of a Rapid Diagnostic Centre Service referral pathway for these patients through a series of interviews with GPs.

PhD student: Emily Lunn

Funder: Yorkshire Cancer Research

Start date: October 2020

Supervisors: Dr Jo Cairns and Professor Una Macleod

Aim

The overall purpose of this research is to obtain an in-depth understanding of the lived experiences of women who live in socio-economically disadvantaged areas of Yorkshire and who experience multiple inequalities to gain an understanding of their experiences and perceptions of the NHS breast screening programme.

Summary

The NHS breast screening programme in the UK invites women aged 50-70 and without symptoms for breast screening every 3 years. Breast screening detects cancer in the earlier stages and improves the chances of survival. However, existing data shows that women who live in more disadvantaged communities have lower uptake of breast screening and access to breast screening is impacted by structural and systemic barriers as well as cultural differences, personal beliefs, and attitudes.

Despite decades of interventional research to improve the uptake of breast screening, we still see inequalities in breast screening. Therefore, this study looked to understand the nuances of everyday life for women living in socio-economically disadvantaged areas in order to understand what barriers they experience and how these can be overcome.

The research adopted a qualitative research design, comprising interviews and focus groups with 35 women, which is most suitable for providing biographical and contextual understanding. By incorporating the views of women into research, we can better comprehend how structural inequalities and fears of discrimination, marginalisation, and indignity impact breast screening uptake.

However, inequalities do not happen in isolation. People living in disadvantaged areas are also more likely to experience multiple inequalities. Therefore, a Qualitative Evidence Synthesis and meta-ethnography have been undertaken to explore the intersections of these inequalities with socio-economic disadvantage to strengthen our understanding of the impact on breast screening attendance.

Funding: Yorkshire Cancer Research

Contact: Julie Walabyeki

Incidence and deaths from lung conditions are more common in Hull than in England as a whole, and higher than any other area of Yorkshire. Hull is the 3rd most deprived local authority in England and has the highest prevalence of smoking in England. Previous research conducted in Hull and surrounding areas suggests that not only do smokers experience cough and breathlessness than non-smokers, they are also less likely than non-smokers to consult their doctor for cough. There is therefore a need to develop interventions, which would result in patients at risk of lung conditions, seeking help earlier and being referred sooner for lung symptoms.

Our aim is to improve earlier diagnosis of lung conditions by working to support 1) People to see their doctor if they get lung symptoms, and 2) GPs to refer people sooner.

PhD Student: Dr Benjamin Pickwell-Smith

Funder: Yorkshire Cancer Research

Time frame: November 2021 to November 2026

Supervisor: Professor Una Macleod

Bowel cancer is the fourth most common cancer in the United Kingdom (UK) with around 110 new cases diagnosed every day. Ovarian cancer is the sixth most common cancer affecting women in the UK, with around 20 new cases diagnosed every day.

Research has shown that cancer survival (the percentage of people still alive after a particular amount of time following a diagnosis of cancer) is lower for patients living in less affluent areas of England. The reasons for this are not fully understood. This research study aims to look for inequalities (differences) and their causes in cancer care. This might help explain what we can do to reduce these inequalities.

We will explore whether patients diagnosed with bowel or ovarian cancer living in less affluent areas:

• Experience more delays in reaching a diagnosis, compared with other patients
• Receive different treatments, compared with other patients

This project will use cancer registration data which is routinely collected by the National Cancer Registration and Analysis Service (the cancer registry in England, part of Public Health England). We will seek to access cancer registration data about all patients living in England who were diagnosed with bowel or ovarian cancer between 2016- 2017. This data will include details about each patient’s:

• Characteristics (such as their age at diagnosis, presence of other medical conditions, or their ethnicity)
• Their cancer (such as how advanced it is)
• Information about their treatment and how they came to be diagnosed.

We will look at the extent to which any differences in diagnostic or treatment times, or in the treatments received, can be explained by patient demographics such as age, number of medical conditions and the affluence of their area of residence.

We will only have access to de-personalised data. It will be kept in a secure environment with strict controls over who is able to access it. After the study, all records will be securely destroyed.

Download the Privacy Notice for the project (PDF)

Funding: Yorkshire Cancer Research

Contact: Professor Una Macleod

The Academy hosts key projects within the Transform programme. Cancer outcomes are poorer in Yorkshire than in England as a whole and especially poor in Hull. People with higher socioeconomic status have substantially better health than those with lower socioeconomic status; this is also true of cancer outcomes.

TRANSFORMing Cancer Outcomes in Yorkshire – funded by Yorkshire Cancer Research, or ‘TRANSFORM’, is a programme of research that aims to tackle these inequalities.

TRANSFORM is funded by an award of £4.9million from Yorkshire Cancer Research and will primarily focus on early diagnosis and detection of cancer, patient management and survivorship and palliative care.

Find out more about the TRANSFORM project.

Funding: Yorkshire Cancer Research

Contact: Julie Walabyeki

More people are diagnosed with and die from lung cancer in Hull than any other place in Yorkshire. This is because Hull has the highest number of people who smoke in England. It is known that if lung cancer is diagnosed earlier, people are more likely to live for longer. This is also true for patients with lung cancer who stop smoking before treatment.

National statistics suggest that people within manual/routine occupations are likely to smoke more than those in other jobs and are therefore an important group to target. These workers include postal workers, receptionists, food, drink and tobacco process operatives, assemblers and construction workers for example. This study will further develop our work in improving lung health in Hull by extending a previous study into workplaces with mostly manual/routine employees. We gained experience in developing a media and community-based intervention to promote lung health and demonstrated an increased awareness of potential lung cancer symptoms. We will build on this by adapting the intervention for use in workplaces. We also seek to enhance our intervention that will increase awareness of potentially serious chest symptoms with initiatives that help people to stop smoking.

We would like to find out whether the workplace is a suitable environment to engage with employees regarding lung health, recognition of potentially serious chest symptoms and going to see the doctor and whether there is a suitable intervention that can be used at the workplace.

Aims

To find out whether using the workplace is a suitable environment to work with employees to:

• Learn more about lung health
• Recognise potentially serious chest symptoms
• Encourage the employees to contact the doctor as soon as possible