Early Cancer Institute Research Clinic

Director of the Early Cancer Institute Research Clinic: Professor Rebecca Fitzgerald

We are pioneering a new paradigm in cancer detection and intervention.

The Clinic will be part of Cambridge Cancer Research Hospital and the first NHS facility built specifically for patients taking part in early cancer studies. It will help develop new technologies to find cancer earlier and support research into how cancer can be prevented.

Our vision is a future where fewer people need to fear cancer. By bringing together experts in cancer research, care, technology and innovation, we aim to detect it early enough to treat more successfully.

The Cambridge Cancer Research Hospital will not only treat people who already have cancer symptoms. It will also support research into how cancer can be found earlier, and in some cases prevented.

The Predict to Prevent Clinic will support work to:

• understand how cancer starts and develops.
• develop and test new, less invasive ways to find cancer early or stop it developing.
• improve tools that help patients and healthcare professionals understand a person’s risk of developing cancer.
• support early clinical trials to see whether new tests and treatments are practical, work well for patients and offer good value for the NHS.
• provide specialist facilities where researchers and industry partners can develop and test new ideas.

Healthy volunteers, including people who may be at higher risk of cancer, will be able to take part in early cancer studies.

The advantages of co-location

The Clinic will be on the top floor of the new hospital, close to the Early Cancer Institute on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus. This will help researchers bring their discoveries into patient studies more quickly, integrating early cancer research into routine clinical care.

Researchers will be able to work closely with clinical trial teams already based in the hospital. This will help new ideas move more quickly from research into patient studies. Engineers and technology experts will also work directly with clinicians and patients to trial new medical devices.

Early detection in action: Barrett’s oesophagus and the capsule sponge

The capsule sponge begins as a pill on a string. It is swallowed by a patient and when it reaches the stomach the coating dissolves. The nurse then pulls the sponge back out of the stomach using the attached string. As the sponge comes up it collects cells from the oesophagus for laboratory analysis. The cells are tested for signs of a condition called Barrett’s oesophagus, which can sometimes develop into oesophageal cancer.

Previously Barrett’s was diagnosed by patients having a biopsy during an endoscopy – which is an uncomfortable hospital procedure. But the capsule sponge and molecular test, which was invented by Professor Rebecca Fitzgerald and her team at the University of Cambridge is much less intrusive, less expensive and can be administered at GP surgeries.

Trials have shown that the capsule sponge can identify ten times more people with Barrett’s oesophagus than the usual GP route, and the test is also better at picking up abnormal cells and potentially early-stage cancer. Diagnosing patients with Barrett’s oesophagus means they can be monitored regularly and treated for any changes in their condition.

The current BEST4 Screening trial will find out if the capsule sponge test could be introduced as a new screening programme for oesophageal cancer.

Professor Fitzgerald said: “The BEST4 Screening trial could fundamentally transform the lives of people affected by oesophageal cancer by providing the crucial evidence needed to make it a viable screening programme, rolled out to every part of the UK.”

Find out more about the capsule sponge by reading our patient story with Liz and this thought leadership article on how it could revolutionise early detection and screening of oesophageal cancer.

More information about the Early Cancer Institute (opens in a new tab) is available on the University of Cambridge website.