Dose intensity and survival outcomes in TYA cancer patients v1
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Is the survival of teenagers and young adults with cancer associated with the dose and intensity of chemotherapy that they receive?
IRAS ID
258433
Contact name
Nicola F Hughes
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Leeds
Duration of Study in the UK
3 years, 0 months, 4 days
Research summary
Aim\n\nThis study will use existing routinely collected NHS data to investigate whether the dose of chemotherapy that Teenage and Young Adult (TYA) cancer patients receive influences their length of life. It will also look at whether any barriers exist, for example side effects experienced or distance that the patient lives from the treatment centre, which prevent patients receiving the ideal amount of chemotherapy. \n\nBackground\n\nTYAs are a vulnerable group of cancer patients who have poorer survival outcomes than younger children and many older adults with the same type of illness. The reason for these poorer outcomes is likely to involve many different factors including the amount of chemotherapy that they are given. Recent research suggests that these patients are receiving less chemotherapy than other patient groups, and that this results in lower survival rates in comparison. Optimal doses of chemotherapy are often quite high and can cause significant side effects. A balance needs to be found between giving enough chemotherapy to successfully treat the cancer but limited to an amount that does not lead to long term health problems and a poor quality of life for the patient following treatment completion.\n\nMethods\n\nWe will request treated data regarding the chemotherapy that patients were prescribed from the Systemic Anti-Cancer Therapy (SACT) dataset which collects chemotherapy prescribing data from all hospitals prescribing chemotherapy in England. \n\nThe inclusion criteria will be all patients aged 12-29 years, with all tumour types who received chemotherapy from January 2014 to December 2016. Patient demographic data held by NCRAS will also be provided so that we can identify any barriers to receiving optimum amounts of chemotherapy. All data provided to us will be non-identifiable meaning individual patients cannot be identified.\n
REC name
Yorkshire & The Humber - Bradford Leeds Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
19/YH/0121
Date of REC Opinion
5 Apr 2019
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion