Mutation profiling of circulating tumour DNA to inform prognosis and treatment selection for head and neck cancers
Project type:
Project
Project Leader:
-
Researcher:
Dr Jenny Taylor
Commencement date:
December 2018
Length of project:
2 years
Funding provided:
£153,622
Funder:
Heads Up and Oracle Cancer Trust
Location:
University of Oxford
Currently, when patients with oropharyngeal cancer are treated with chemo-radiotherapy, 12 weeks after treatment they have a PET scan to check for the presence of any remaining cancer, called residual disease.
The scan shows how successful the patients response to treatment has been. If all clear, patients can enter surveillance. If there is still tumour remaining, further treatment such as neck dissection is required.
However, for a proportion of patients, there is some doubt around what the scan is showing. Is there cancer remaining or are they clear? In these cases, even though not all these patients will have residual disease, as a precaution all patients are offered further treatment which may or may not be necessary.
On the flip side, for a minority group, patients with scans that are thought to show no residual tumour, then return at 3 months with recurrence of the disease.
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Oracle Head & Neck Cancer UK is a registered charity in England and Wales (1142037), and in Scotland (SC052790).
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