Rosemere funding research into kinder diagnostic tests for womb cancer
The majority of post-menopausal women, referred for further hospital investigation after going to their GP with bleeding, could be spared from current invasive and uncomfortable diagnostics tests in the future.
Hopefully a study being funded by charity Rosemere Cancer Foundation will find kinder alternatives.
Post-menopausal bleeding is seen as a red flag symptom of womb (endometrial) cancer. Womb cancer is the UK’s most common gynaecological cancer and the fourth most common cancer affecting British women with approximately 9,800 new cases diagnosed annually.
Most post-menopausal women, who go to their GP with bleeding, will therefore receive a “two week wait referral”, officially called an “urgent suspected cancer referral”, to gynaecology outpatients, where they are likely to undergo a series of invasive tests.
Among these tests are a transvaginal ultrasound scan, hysteroscopy (an examination of the womb using a thin telescope inserted through the cervix) and a biopsy. Annually, 1,300 women attend the Royal Preston Hospital’s post-menopausal bleeding clinic.
These tests are expensive, time-consuming and painful and given that less than one in 20 women who undergo them (less than 5%) will have womb cancer, Royal Preston Hospital gynaecological oncologist Dr Gemma Owens is leading on a study, in partnership with UCLAN with £23,815.30 from Rosemere Cancer Foundation to pay for consumables, some staffing costs and results presentations, to develop a quicker, less invasive test that could help decide who really needs the more extensive investigations and who can be reassured without them.
Dr Owens and co-investigators Prof Ihtesham Ur Rehman, professor of biomaterials and regenerative medicine and head of translational research at UCLAN’s School of Medicine and Dentistry, and school research assistant Mariana Moreira are looking at developing a urine test and/or a blood test to diagnose womb cancer.
They are using a new technology called LAMP (Loop-Mediated Isothermal Amplification). It is a fast and simple way to detect DNA, which is shed by circulating cancer cells (ctDNA) in the blood and other biofluids such as urine. LAMP produces results quickly without complex lab equipment, making it useful for early cancer detection.
The team is working with blood and urine samples already stored in the Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust’s Genitourinary Bank. They have 20 samples from women diagnosed with womb cancer and 20 control samples from women without womb cancer to investigate whether LAMP can successfully detect womb cancer ctDNA.
Dr Owens said: “LAMP has the potential to enable liquid biopsy – a urine or blood test for womb cancer – to overcome many of the limitations of the current biopsy-based approach. As LAMP is inexpensive and simple to perform, it could make significant cost savings for the NHS and speed up the diagnostic pathway for women with womb cancer.
“In the future, LAMP could also be utilised to assess the effectiveness of fertility-sparing treatment in young women with early stage womb cancer, as a potential screening test in women at high risk of developing womb cancer and to monitor for recurrent womb cancer.”
Dan Hill, chief officer of Rosemere Cancer Foundation and head of charities for Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said: “We are delighted to fund this exciting piece of research. Its implications are just huge.
“Success means the team will have developed a kind, sensitive, robust, rapid method for the detection of womb cancer that will benefit thousands of women annually going forwards. We wish them every success.”
Rosemere Cancer Foundation works to bring world class cancer treatments and services to cancer patients from throughout Lancashire and South Cumbria being treated at either Rosemere Cancer Centre, the region’s specialist cancer treatment and radiotherapy centre at the Royal Preston Hospital, or one of eight local hospital cancer units across the two counties.
The charity funds cutting edge equipment, research, training and other cancer services and therapies that the NHS is unable to afford. For further information on its work, including how to make a donation, visit www.rosemere.org.uk