‘Game-changing’ cancer database launched
pharmafile | June 13, 2013 | News story | Medical Communications, Research and Development, Sales and Marketing | Cancer, Department of Health, NHS
The Department of Health has unveiled a new system for co-ordinating cancer treatment which it hopes will save thousands of lives each year.
Data from millions of patient records has been brought together in the biggest cancer registration database, giving specialists instant access to detailed clinical data.
The national register will use data from patients at every acute NHS trust as well 11 million historical records. It will eventually track how each sub-type of cancer responds to treatment, which will inform treatment for future patients.
It is expected to highlight differences in quality of care across the country and allow personalised treatment for each cancer patient.
“This is game changing,” said Jem Rashbass, who leads the cancer registration service at Public Health England.
Rashbass told The Times newspaper: “This puts us at the forefront of cancer care for the next two decades. In effect, every cancer patient has a rare disease that is different in some way from another cancer.”
He added that this allows PHE to carry out refined searches to see how other tumours have responded, in the hope of identifying the best treatment as early as possible.
The new service has taken five years to develop and collates detailed clinical information on 350,000 cancers diagnosed across England.
Data from tissue and tumour samples, information from breast, bowel and cervical cancer screening programmes and radiotherapy and chemotherapy treatment results will all be available in one place.
The database will be updated monthly with information from every acute NHS trust and was unveiled this week at the Cancer Outcomes Conference in Brighton, hosted by the National Cancer Intelligence Network.
This falls in line with a new way of looking at cancer at a genetic level, with new ‘personalised’ drugs designed to target specific mutations that are fuelling tumour growth.
The first big breakthrough drug in this area was Roche’s breast cancer drug Herceptin, which targets the HER2+ mutation, but there are now more and more medicines aimed at treating a range of cancer sub-types, such as lung cancer treatments Iressa and more recently Xalkori, developed by AstraZeneca and Pfizer respectively.
With these treatments has also come the need for diagnostic tools to help detect the specific mutations new oncology medicines are targeting. The new database will be a positive force pharma who will have better data to help utilise its new drugs.
Ben Adams
Related Content
Digital mental health technologies – a valuable tool in supporting people with depression and anxiety
The potential benefits of digital mental health technology for managing depression, anxiety and stress, together …
A community-first future: which pathways will get us there?
In the final Gateway to Local Adoption article of 2025, Visions4Health caught up with Julian …
The Pharma Files: with Dr Ewen Cameron, Chief Executive of West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust
Pharmafile chats with Dr Ewen Cameron, Chief Executive of West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust, about …
