Research Programme Could Be ‘Game Changer for Cancer Survival,’ Says Scientist

File photo of blood samples being held, dated April 7, 2011. Vieira/PA Wire

Our Future Health, the UK’s largest health research programme, and the data it collects could be a “game changer” for cancer diagnosis and survival rates, the project’s executive director of science has said.

Our Future Health is a project which aims to improve how scientists prevent, detect, and treat cancer through the study of donated blood samples.

Researchers will use a database of blood samples which were collected two to five years before participants receive a cancer diagnosis to look for key markers or patterns for the disease.

It is a similar principle to an earlier study on ovarian cancer conducted by Cancer Research UK and other charities, where women were asked to give blood at yearly intervals. If a participant developed ovarian cancer, scientists could then look back at her previous blood samples to try to identify any markers in them before her symptoms had manifested.

Professor Michael Cook, the executive director of science at Our Future Health, said that the potential for earlier cancer diagnosis makes the project a piece of “key research infrastructure for UK science.”

The work of Our Future Health also aims to transform the treatment and prevention of conditions such as heart disease, dementia, stroke, and diabetes.

‘Game Changer’

Cook said that the UK lags behind many developed countries in terms of five-year cancer survival rates, “and we know that if we can just diagnose some of these malignancies one or two years earlier, we are likely to see a stage shift. So rather than people being diagnosed with stage three disease, they’ll be diagnosed with stage two; or rather than stage two, stage one.”

“And that really is a game changer for cancer survival,” Cook said.

Analysis by charity Macmillan Cancer Support published in June found that cancer survival rates in the UK were as much as 25 years behind other European countries, and that if survival rates matched the best in Europe, “thousands more people who are diagnosed each year would survive their cancer for at least five years.”

Macmillan had compared cancer survival rates across England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales with the equivalent data for Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, which have relatively similar healthcare systems to the UK. The charity found that “as well as considerably poorer survival for colon, prostate and cervical cancer, the comparison ... also shows survival rates for breast cancer are lagging up to 10 years behind.”

One Million Enrolled

More than one million adults have enrolled in Our Future Health, with expectations that a total of five million will participate.

The programme’s Chief Executive and Chief Medical Officer Dr. Raghib Ali said that Our Future Health is now the largest health research programme in the world of its kind and is already offering “an incredibly detailed picture of the UK’s health, offering health researchers a window into the causes of every major common disease.”

Ali said: “For the first time, researchers will be able to look at the genetic information of over a million people and see how it interacts with demographics, lifestyle, physical measurements, family history, and personal medical records.

“And because our volunteers have consented to be re-contacted to take part in further health studies, we’ll also be able to find new ways to prevent those diseases.”

Our Future Health’s research is in line with the new Labour government’s strategy for the NHS to focus on prevention, as well as successful treatment.

Science and Technology Secretary Peter Kyle said: “The combined efforts of the NHS, health charities and industry has set the foundations for breakthroughs in the fight against cancer, dementia, diabetes and more, for decades to come.

“With government backing, Our Future Health will help our researchers transform how we diagnose, treat and prevent a whole range of debilitating diseases.”

Our Future Health says researchers analyse data that has been “de-identified”—where identifiable information like name, date of birth, or postcode have been removed—accessed in secure data environments. It adds that it has strict controls around which researchers can access the data, involving a registration process that “checks the credentials and experience of each researcher and ensures they are trained in data governance and safe data handling processes.”

PA Media contributed to this report.