Genotype-phenotype correlation in cutaneous tumours
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Genotype-phenotype correlation in cutaneous tumours
IRAS ID
292029
Contact name
Richard Carr
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
South Warwickshire NHS Foundation Trust
Duration of Study in the UK
20 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
The skin is made up of a limited number of cell types. However, these limited cell types could turn into a diverse range of benign and cancerous skin tumour (growth). The overall aim of the study is to understand the relationship between the clinical appearance, microscopic appearance and genetic characteristics of skin tumour (many of which shared similar characteristics and can be difficult to distinguish) in order to refine existing diagnostic criteria for different skin tumour. There will be sub-studies within the overall study which specifically investigates tumour with shared characteristics. Sub-study 1 will investigate keratoacanthoma (grows rapidly and then typically regresses) and cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (a cancer that keeps growing), which shared similar clinical and microscopic characteristics but have distinctive clinical behaviour. We will apply for major amendment when additional sub-studies are to be added within this research ethics application. The overall study aims to recruit 1000 participants and study methodology involves obtaining patient’s prospective consent for collecting data from their hospital records relevant to their skin tumour and retrieval of their surplus skin tumour tissues stored in NHS diagnostic archive in order to describe their clinical and microscopic characteristics. Participants can opt-in for their pseudo-anonymised tissue samples to be send for genetic analysis (e.g. examine the expression of genes within the neoplasm and adjacent normal skin); opt-in for their anonymised research data to be used for future training of artificial intelligence systems to recognise skin tumour; opt-in for their research data and surplus tissue samples stored in NHS diagnostic archive to be accessed for future research ethics committee approved studies. Descriptive statistical analysis will be performed to describe the correlation between the clinical, microscopic and genetic characteristics of the skin tumour.
REC name
London - Fulham Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
22/PR/0633
Date of REC Opinion
18 May 2022
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion