Routes to Diagnosis - Head and Neck Cancer
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Routes to Diagnosis in Head and Neck Cancer in England, using secondary data.
IRAS ID
206040
Contact name
Linda Sharp
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Newcastle University
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 3 months, 18 days
Research summary
Head and Neck cancer is an umbrella term for various different cancers which mainly develop in the skin cells lining the mouth, nose and throat. Patients with head and neck cancer often present late and late presentation results in poorer survival rates; unfortunately the reasons for late presentation are currently poorly understood. Therefore an understanding of the route taken to diagnosis will give us an insight into the different ways patients present, hopefully enabling us to gain further understanding into where potential delays occur.
It is the intention of this study to use data collected through the National Cancer Intelligence Network (NCIN), which is a database which tracks every cancer diagnosis in the UK, to consider the routes to diagnosis of head and neck cancer patients. This database can currently provide every cancer registration recorded between 2006 and 2015.
A route to diagnosis is developed for each patient and the intention is to consider who uses the different routes and if certain routes are used by similar people (based on sociodemographic data such as gender, age, or ethnicity and clinical data such as stage of cancer, type of head and neck cancer, or HPV status). The study will also compare survival in people who use each route to see if a particular route is linked with better survival outcomes. Finally a more in-depth analysis will take place of the route labelled “Other outpatient” as in previous research it was shown around 30% of some head and neck cancers came through this route, compared to an overall rate of 10% of all cancers using this route. This will allow us to understand the extent to which other healthcare professionals such as dentists are used by patients with a diagnosis of head and neck cancer.
REC name
Yorkshire & The Humber - South Yorkshire Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
17/YH/0399
Date of REC Opinion
16 Nov 2017
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion