ACORN

• Research type

  Research Study

• Full title

  AETIOLOGICAL AND CLINICAL OSCC RESEARCH NETWORK

• IRAS ID

  341269

• Contact name

  Russell Petty

• Contact email

  r.petty@dundee.ac.uk

• Sponsor organisation

  University of Dundee

• Duration of Study in the UK

  3 years, 3 months, 0 days

• Research summary

  Oesophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma (OSCC) is the less studied subtype of Oesophageal cancer (OC). 33% of OC patients in the UK have OSCC. This is often linked to social deprivation factors, such as; alcohol, smoking, nutrient deficiency and environment. While it is the 12th most common cancer, it causes the 6th highest number of deaths in the UK.
  OSCC disseminates early and in current practice the majority of patients have metastatic disease at the time of diagnosis, which if not treated will subsequently manifest as cancer recurrence. If cancers appear locoregionally confined on staging investigations, surgical resection can offer the potential to cure, but due to co-morbid conditions, including cardiovascular and respiratory disease, many OSCC patients are unfit to proceed with surgery. Consequently, effective medicines as systemic treatments are crucial for the successful treatment of OSCC.
  To be able to undertake OSCC research that will have a more realistic probability of translating from the laboratory to making clinical impact for patients, there is a clear need for OSCC models that are more representative of the clinical condition of patients’ tumours. Tumour organoids offer a complex cellular patient-specific ex vivo system that can be expanded, and both chemically and genetically manipulated. Patient derived organoids (PDO) from oesophageal adenocarcinoma have been previously isolated and shown to successfully predict chemotherapy response. OSCC PDOs may therefore more faithfully reflect the pathophysiology of the patient’s tumour and provide a more clinically relevant disease model for investigation of mechanisms of resistance. PDOs will hence prove useful for validation and optimisation of drug combination therapies to overcome resistance and for the analysis of biomarkers of drug response. The current focus on oesophageal adenocarcinoma in the UK has resulted in no available oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma PDOs, and hence a key ‘bottleneck’ for translational and clinical research.

• REC name

  Yorkshire & The Humber - Leeds East Research Ethics Committee

• REC reference

  25/YH/0020

• Date of REC Opinion

  13 Mar 2025

• REC opinion

  Further Information Favourable Opinion