Aberdeen
Understanding how stomach cancer develops
Unfortunately this diagnosis is often made at a relatively late stage of the disease, when cancer has already spread to other parts of the body and is more difficult to treat.
Not everyone with the bacterial infection develops stomach cancer. Professor El-Omar and his team are investigating why some people are more likely to develop the disease than others. They have identified a number of genes that can influence a person's risk of stomach cancer when they are infected with the bacterium.
They are now working out how these variations affect this risk. They hope that a greater understanding of the biological processes involved in the development of stomach cancer will pave the way for new treatments and prevention strategies for this disease.
New way of checking mammograms
In the UK, most mammograms are checked by two specialist readers. This ensures more accurate reading, but also increases the workload of a profession where there are already staff shortages. One possible solution is to use a computer-aided detection (CAD) system, alongside one specialist reader. A pilot study has shown that using this system is just as good as having two people look at the mammograms. Professor Fiona Gilbert of the University of Aberdeen, is running the CADET 2 trial to find out if the CAD system will work in a real-life screening situation. The mammograms of 30,000 women will be examined in the study.
Social inequalities and bowel cancer
Researchers have found that people with bowel cancer who come from socially deprived and more rural areas tend to have a lower chance of survival and a poorer quality of life. At the moment, we do not fully understand the reasons for these differences. It may be due to factors such as access to cancer treatment centres; whether a person’s cancer is detected at an earlier or later stage; and also whether the person has other health problems including psychological or social problems.
Dr Neil Campbell of the Department of General Practice and Primary Care at the University of Aberdeen is investigating the differences in bowel cancer survival rates and quality of life between people living in affluent and deprived areas of Scotland and those living in urban and rural areas. Dr Campbell hopes this research will shed light on how the treatment and care of these patients can be improved to reduce these inequalities.
Dr Campbell and his team hope that their research will ensure that all communities receive the same standard of care in the future.
Improving treatment of children's cancer
Childhood cancer is quite rare, affecting around 1 in 500 children under the age of 15 in Britain. The small numbers of patients, particularly those with rare childhood cancers, mean that collaborative clinical trials are essential if treatment is to rapidly improve.
We fund the clinical trials work of the Children’s Cancer and Leukaemia Group (CCLG). The group co-ordinates the care of virtually all the UK’s children with cancer, ensuring they receive the most up-to-date treatments. Children involved in clinical trials tend to do better and the CCLG has greatly improved recruitment in recent years. The CCLG runs trials at 21 paediatric centres throughout the British Isles, including the Aberdeen Royal Infirmary.
