This work is being led by Professor Louis Chesler at The Institute of Cancer Research in London, on behalf of a large multi-centre consortium. The support will help fund the start of a national infrastructure for rapid sequencing of tumour DNA from young cancer patients, including:
- A tissue referral and diagnostics pathway, to allow NHS pathologists to submit tissue to a central genomics hub, linked to clinical trials research and get results within two weeks
- A dedicated paediatric genomics facility, to support clinical implementation of DNA sequencing for cancer patients
- A national clinical-genomic database and accessible bio-informatics team, to record and interpret the data, and link it to the national patient registry and other databases
- An expert multidisciplinary molecular tumour board, to provide a national consent, ethics and clinical reporting framework and drive Precision Medicine forward in the UK
Our ambition is that all children, teenagers and young adults diagnosed with cancer in the UK have access to Precision Medicine through the NHS within the framework of clinical trials. This ground-breaking funding will help develop the first programme for Precision Medicine for young cancer patients in the UK, already started in parts of the USA and Europe.Initiative Leader, Professor Louis Chesler of The Institute of Cancer Research, said:
Integration of modern technologies to cancer treatment is very important because it maximises the chance of developing a new generation of ‘targeted’ cancer drugs. It is incredibly exciting and their application to children’s cancers could be groundbreaking, but only if the drugs are properly applied to patients with very precise knowledge about the unique changes in genes, proteins and cancer cells that occur in each child’s tumour. This funding will help us move towards a more comprehensive and structured approach to genetic testing to match children with cancer to specific targeted treatments, which could be an incredibly important step towards increasing survival and reducing the side-effects of treatment.At the same time as providing funding to pump-prime the implementation of DNA sequencing, Children with Cancer UK has developed a five-point plan to ensure that all children diagnosed with cancer in the UK have access to Precision Medicine. (See Annex 1) Children with Cancer UK is also organising the Childhood Cancer 2017 conference to be held on the 18th and 19th September in Newcastle. This will discuss the latest translational medicine used in the treatment of cancer in children and young people.
