May 2010 podcast transcript

This month: a breakthrough in bowel cancer screening could save hundreds more lives each year, confusion over reports that five a day may not be as beneficial as we first thought, and a private member’s bill to protect children from sunbeds finally becomes law.

A five-minute screening test could cut the number of people who develop bowel cancer by a third and save thousands of lives each year.

A 16 year study, by the Medical Research Council, NHS and Cancer Research UK, showed that a one-off flexiscope test between the ages of 55 and 64 could pick up pre-cancerous lumps in the bowel. These lumps, called polyps, can be removed before they develop into cancer.
The results of the study are so significant that Cancer Research UK is calling on the government to introduce flexiscope alongside the current bowel cancer screening programme.

Our science blogger Henry Scowcroft talks about the benefits of the new test.

“The current national bowel screening test picks up traces of blood in a person’s stools, which are a sign of cancer that is already growing. But the flexiscope test can spot pre-cancerous polyps, so they can be removed before they even get the chance to develop into tumours.

So not only is it detecting cancer at an early stage, it’s also preventing it, which will make a real difference in saving lives.”

For years, we’ve been advised to eat five portions of fruit and veg a day to cut the risk of getting cancer, and other diseases. But headlines this month claimed that ‘five a day’ would not significantly cut cancer risk.

A new report from EPIC, the biggest ever study on diet and cancer, showed that five a day only had a ‘modest effect’ on protecting against cancer. But although the headlines may sound surprising, the results don’t actually alter our health advice. 

Jessica Harris form our health information team explains why it’s still worth getting your five a day.

“This study looked at cancer overall, so it’s not surprising it didn’t show a really big impact, because we know that fruit and vegetables are only likely to affect about three types of cancer anyway. So, of course, if you look at the whole picture, it’s not likely to have a very big effect.

It’s also important to remember that eating fruit and vegetables is good for you in other ways as well. For example, it can protect you against other chronic diseases. And we also know that people who eat a lot of fruit and vegetables find it easier to keep a healthy bodyweight, and doing that is one of the best ways to reduce your risk of cancer. It all fits into a bigger lifestyle picture. And, of course, even a small reduction in cancer risk is still an important contribution.”

And we’ve taken an in-depth look at that story on our blog.

A private member’s bill to protect children from the dangers of sunbeds has made it onto the statute books in the final days of the current government, and will become law within a year. The bill was put forward by MP Julie Morgan, with support from Cancer Research UK, and will prevent children under 18 from using sunbeds in England and Wales. Scotland has already brought in similar legislation.

Our head of policy, Sarah Woolnough, explains why the new law is such good news.

“Thanks to the sun beds act it is illegal for under-18s to use sunbeds. Cancer Research UK really welcomes this and has worked hard to support the act. Skin cancer rates in the UK have been rising rapidly and we know that sunbed use is a contributing factor, so we’re very pleased that the legislation has passed.

We will continue to work over the next year or so to strengthen the legislation – to ensure that all salons are staffed and that clear, accurate health information for adult users is displayed."

Last month, Cancer Research UK launched the national children’s cancer trials team in Birmingham. The team will coordinate children’s cancer trials across the UK, and will make important advances in treating children with cancer.

Dr Kat Arney from our Science Information team went to find our more. She spoke to Dr Pam Kearns, who will lead the team in Birmingham.

Every year around 1,500 children are diagnosed with cancer in the UK, and around 300 lives are lost to the disease.

Cancer Research UK is investing over £700,000 in the Children’s Cancer Trial Team, as well as funding additional clinical trials for children with cancer. I started by asking Dr Kearns to explain more about the role of the new trials team.

“This team has been established to take on the role of managing and developing children’s cancer trials for the UK. There’s been a long tradition of doing paediatric and leukaemia trials, not just in the UK but across the world, run within a network called the Childhood Cancer and Leukaemia Group (the CCLG), which is a group of professionals working in treatment centres around the country. As of the 1st April, Birmingham has been offered the opportunity to host the co-ordinating centre for the clinical trials run within that network.

So the reason I think that this is a great opportunity is that the Cancer Research UK clinical trials unit in Birmingham has existed for 25 years, and has been running adult cancer trials throughout that time. It has a wealth of experience in that development, and has an enormous backlog of expertise and a critical mass of people who know how to run clinical trials, and know how to develop clinical trials. So children’s trials will benefit from that expertise.

At the moment, we’re actually doing quite well for cure rates with children’s cancer. 1,500 children a year are diagnosed with cancer in the UK, and over the last two to three decades the survival rates for those children have increased dramatically, with an average of around 75 per cent now surviving cancer. But within that figure there are also some cancers that still aren’t doing very well. And even in cancers where we have very good survival rates – over 80 or 90 per cent – the intensity of the treatment means that there are both acute and long-term side effects, which have an impact on the quality of survival for children. 

So our aim at the moment is to firstly improve survival for those difficult-to-treat cancers. The best way to do that is to ask good research questions in the context of a clinical trial. But also in trials going forwards we need to address the issue of quality of life, to look at the way our cancer drugs work, and bring new cancer drugs in that will have less impact on quality of life in the future.

There’s been an enormous ethos built up through the CCLG over many decades of encouraging families to participate in clinical trials. So although the total number of children with cancer isn’t very high, the number who participate in clinical trials as a proportion of that total is very high, and I think that’s for two reasons. One is the enormous willingness of families to help, on an altruistic basis, the future for other children. So when you discuss clinical trials with them they’re very willing to participate because they believe it will help other families in the future. 

And on the other side of that, there’s the members of the CCLG, the paediatric oncologists and haematologists around the UK, who are very committed to delivering good clinical research for children. They are prepared to put in the time and effort it takes to not only develop the trials and understand the trials, but to discuss with families the advantages of trials. I think putting those two things together gives us a high recruitment rate.

I’ve been asked before whether any of the trials we’re running are particularly exciting, and I think they’re all exciting! We wouldn’t be doing them if we didn’t think they were exciting. In the first instance we’re transferring a portfolio of nine trials that are already up and running. That’s a range of trials covering all sorts of different diseases including childhood leukaemia, childhood brain tumours and childhood sarcomas and other types of solid tumours in children. 

Going forward, we already have in development another twelve trials that are at different stages – two of which we hope will open this year. One is for acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, the most common type of childhood cancer, and that will open in December 2010. 

And we have another trial which is a Cancer Research UK-funded phase 1 trial, which is a trial of a brand new agent that we’re going to evaluate whether it benefits children with cancer under the age of twelve. So this is a new drug which we hope, if it show signs of being promising, will get incorporated into new trials and standard practice in the future. So that’s quite an exciting development, and we hope that trial will open in August or September this year.

I think the most important message I’d like to send out is a big thank you to all families of children with cancer who have contributed to clinical trials over the last few decades, and I know will continue to do so. Without them we couldn’t make progress with childhood cancer. 

And I think the second message is a big thank you to Cancer Research UK who are investing £700,000 per year in supporting our Children’s Cancer Trials Team and are giving additional support for each of the trials that we do. Obviously they couldn’t do that without the fantastic fundraising that goes on from Cancer Research UK’s supporters. So a very big thank you to all those people that are raising money for Cancer Research UK.”

You can find out more about Cancer Research UK’s work into children’s cancers from the research highlights section of our News & Resources website.

That was Dr Kat Arney speaking to Dr Pam Kearns. We’ll be back next month with all the latest cancer news. Until then, you can follow us on twitter at twitter.com/CR_UK

Credits

• Presenter - Sally Staples
• Script editor - Rachel Gonzaga
• Producer - Kat Arney
• Original music - Henry Scowcroft and Kat Arney
• With special thanks to all the contributors