National recognition for cancer diagnosis tool

Professor Julia Hippisley-Cox said: “It is a great honour and hugely rewarding to hear that our research has been recognised with a nomination at these prestigious awards, especially given the calibre of the competition.

“While recognition of this kind is indeed gratifying, we hope that our research will continue to make an impact in the longer term by assisting GPs in the incredibly difficult job of spotting this potentially deadly disease and arming them with an effective tool in protecting the health of their patients.”

Underlying risk factors

One of the most common cancers worldwide, diagnosis of gastro-oesophageal cancer often relies on late indicator symptoms — the research focus was to develop a tool with the ability to highlight the illness at an early stage by primary care clinicians such as GPs.

The paper produced by the Nottingham team evaluated the effectiveness of the QCancer gastro-oesophageal algorithm — which they developed in collaboration with the medical software company ClinRisk — in spotting patients with both the symptoms and underlying risk factors which may make them statistically more likely to have or to develop the common form of cancer.

The research found that the 10 per cent of the patients that the algorithm predicted as most at risk of having the disease accounted for 77 per cent of all the gastro-oesophageal cancer cases diagnosed over the following two years.

In assessing the paper, the awards judging panel found that the algorithm was a far more robust and comprehensive predictor of gastro-oesophageal cancers than other diagnostic tools currently available.

Award panel chair, Professor Frank Sullivan, said: “GPs would be able to incorporate this tool into daily practice as a useful addition to the interventions available to them on this disease. It could also serve to engender a more proactive approach in partnerships with patients who are at risk of gastro-oesophageal cancers.”

Department of Health cancer tsar Professor Mike Richards said: "It can be difficult for GPs to assess the risk of a patient having cancer and therefore to know who should be investigated and/or referred to secondary care. QCancer provides a new approach to such risk assessment.”

The research has also led to a simple web-based calculator which can be used by patients to check whether they have symptoms that need to be assessed by a doctor.

A record number of entries are competing to win the 2011 RCGP and Novartis Research Paper of the Year, which will be presented on 18 June.

Now in its fifteenth year, the nomination call for the 2011 Research Paper of the Year has attracted 80 entries, more than double the previous year’s intake.

Along with the overall 2011 winner, the awards will also include six sub-category winners which are aligned to the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) topic-specific research areas, including diabetes, stroke and primary care, and a seventh category of the Primary Care Research Network.

The authors of the winning paper will be invited to present their research at the annual RCGP and Society for Academic Primary Care Conference which is being held in conjunction with the 2012 RCGP Annual Primary Care Conference in Glasgow in October.

The black tie presentation dinner will be held at The Honourable Artillery Company, Armoury House in London.