The potential of blood tests for multi-cancer early detection (MCED) to reduce cancer mortality has elicited substantial interest. However, it is unlikely that in the foreseeable future such tests would replace currently available cancer screening programs. Thus, an important need for these common cancers is for biomarker tests that, in combination with subject characteristics, would improve the efficiency of screening by providing personalized screening schedules to individuals based on their risk. For other less common cancers for which screening in a general population setting is not practical, blood based tests would identify individuals at sufficiently high risk to be screened for these cancers.
45
1/10/2023
Dr Emma Woodward is a Consultant clinical Geneticist and Honorary Senior Clinical Lecturer. High-risk single gene disorders account for ≈5-10% of cancers with lower risk alleles accounting for a further ≈10-15%. This patient group are unique in having a markedly elevated lifetime risk of developing particular cancer types and propensity to multiple primary tumours. However, there are significant opportunities for cancer prevention and early detection strategies in the individual and their at-risk family members. Here I discuss how cancer prevention and early detection care of these patients and their families reduces cancer burden and provides unique insights into underlying biology and opportunities for novel research strategies.
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7/8/2021
Dr Christian von Wagner is a Reader at the Department of Behavioural Science and Health, at the Institute of Epidemiology & Health Care. His presentation will illustrate the role of behavioural science in improving cancer outcomes through the study of cancer screening, measuring patient experiences/preferences and assessing knowledge, attitudes and beliefs about cancer. He will give examples of how behavioural science can use an experimental medicine approach to identify new targets and strategies to reduce socioeconomic inequalities in cancer screening; how to reduce structural barriers to help seeking and cancer screening by understanding the role of allied health professionals and develop and evaluate community-based interventions.
61
3/2/2021
Personal reflection on the impact of ACED on cancer early detection by Prof Mark Emberton.
603
1/19/2021
Nora Pashayan is a Professor of Applied Cancer Research at UCL Institute of Epidemiology and Healthcare and an Honorary Consultant in Public Health Medicine. She is qualified in medicine (American University of Beirut), specialized in both family medicine and public health medicine, and qualified in both epidemiology (LSHTM) and public health (University of Cambridge). Nora’s research is in risk-stratified cancer screening, from modeling the natural history of cancer, identifying risk-stratified screening strategies that optimise the benefit-harm balance and the cost-effectiveness of the screening programmes, to preparing for implementation of such programmes.
In this session, Nora will cover how early is early, why one-size does not fit all, and how risk-stratification could optimise the benefit-harm balance of early detection programmes.
109
7/24/2020
Dr Jamie Blundell is a UKRI Future Leaders Fellow and group leader in the CRUK Cambridge Centre Early Detection Programme. He trained as a theoretical physicist at Cambridge and then as a quantitative biologist at Stanford. In 2017 he established his own group in the early detection programme in Cambridge. His lab studies the somatic evolution that occurs in healthy tissues as we age and how this evolution is altered at the earliest stages of cancer. Focusing on dynamic changes in blood, Jamie’s lab develops and applies novel ultra-sensitive sequencing technologies to large collections of longitudinal blood samples and then applies quantitative principles from evolutionary theory to develop personalised “forecasts” of future cancer risk and identify those most in need of intervention. The lab is also interested in adaptive immune repertoire dynamics in cancer and other diseases.
96
6/17/2020