Educational outcomes after childhood cancer in England (1)
Research type
Research Study
Full title
The assessment of educational outcomes in children (aged 0-15) who have had a diagnosis of cancer compared to the general population in England: A Record-Linkage Study
IRAS ID
221974
Contact name
Alastair Sutcliffe
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University College London - Institute of Child Health
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
No Z6364106/2017/01/47, UCL Data Protection Registration Number
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 7 months, 1 days
Research summary
Treatment of childhood cancer has shown remarkable success over the last 40 years, with more children surviving into adulthood than ever before. Currently 4 out of 5 children in the UK survive their cancer for at least 5 years. This poses a new challenge, however, as it is unclear whether having cancer or undergoing treatment has any long-lasting psychological, social and educational complications. Education is of particular importance, as it remains a strong predictor of future socio-economic and emotional well-being. Studies to date have remained conflicting and have been limited by size and design. The main difficulties include defining and quantifying educational outcomes, as well as recruiting and following up participants.
We aim to investigate using record-linkage, whether educational outcomes assessed through Key Stage examination results, differ in children who have had a diagnosis of cancer compared to children in the general population in England. We will use two national registries, the National Registry for Childhood Tumours (NRCT) and the National Pupil Database (NPD) to identify children with cancer as well as healthy children from a similar background, and retrieve their educational outcomes at Key Stages 1-5.
It is of utmost importance to acknowledge that this study requires access to highly sensitive and confidential datasets. However, through this study, it is possible to circumvent the major limitations encountered in previous studies and to comprehensively answer if educational outcomes differ in childhood cancer survivors. This will no doubt have the potential to develop targeted interventions by clinicians, teachers and policy makers to improve lifetime outcomes for children who have had cancer.
REC name
London - Hampstead Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
17/LO/0550
Date of REC Opinion
24 Apr 2017
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion