Manchester scientists are set to receive £1.2million from Cancer Research UK to help transform pancreatic cancer treatment in the UK.
The charity is investing a total of £10million in the PRECISION Panc project – based in Glasgow, Manchester and Cambridge – which aims to develop personalised treatments for pancreatic cancer patients, improving the options and outcomes for a disease where survival rates have remained stubbornly low.
Around 1,000 people are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in the North West every year. And sadly currently around 930 people die from the disease in the North West every year.
Scientists from the Cancer Research UK Manchester Institute, based at The University of Manchester, will work with experts at The Christie NHS Foundation Trust and with researchers across the UK on the project to develop new treatments for pancreatic cancer using a network of clinical trials, aiming to find the right trial for the right patient.
The project aims to speed up recruitment and enrolment of pancreatic cancer patients to clinical trials that are right for the individual patient, with patients being selected based on their individual tumour.
The researchers will use the molecular profile of each individual cancer to offer patients and their doctor a menu of trials that might benefit them.
The first wave of research will establish the best way to collect and profile patient tissue samples. Each patient will have up to five samples taken from their tumour at diagnosis for analysis at the University of Glasgow.
The results will guide clinical trial options in the future.
Three initial trials planned as part of this initiative will recruit a total of 658 patients from a number of centres across the UK – with the scope to add more trials in the future. Patients may also be helped onto suitable clinical trials that are already up and running.
