News
German Cancer Research Centre DKFZ, Heidelberg February 2020
Dr Miranda Pring visited the German Cancer Research Centre to take part in the HEADSpAcE HPV16 E6 ELISA Workshop. The workshop participants were trained in the use of an ELISA assay and the laboratory methodology. The ELISA test will be used to detect serological response to human papilloma virus (HPV) in blood samples donated by people with oropharyngeal cancer. It will be used alongside other established diagnostic techniques to determine the optimal combination of tests for detection of HPV within the HEADSpAcE study.
BD4QoL Study Meeting, Milan, January 2020
Professor Ness and Katrina Hurley attended the ‘kick off’ meeting for the BD4QoL study. The study is run by the University of Milan and aims to see if quality of life in head and neck cancer patients can be improved by using non-invasive monitoring of quality of life. The study has two parts; a prospective randomized study that will recruit new participants, and a historical study that will look at existing quality of life data. Head & Neck 5000 will send a dataset for the historical study and University Hospitals Bristol will recruit new participants to the prospective study.
HEADSpAcE Pathology meeting in Bogota, Colombia, September 2019
Translational Studies of Head and Neck Cancer in South America and Europe (HEADSpAcE) is a project funded by the European Union that started in January 2019. It brings together a consortium of 15 partner institutions and this study will investigate multiple reasons for the poor prognosis of Head and Neck cancers, including individual and structural reasons for late diagnosis; the influence of lifestyle, infectious and genetic factors on poor outcome; and the adherence to clinical guidelines in various settings.
Dr Pring attended the HEADSpAcE pathology meeting in Bogota, Colombia alongside pathology colleagues based in partner organisations. The meeting was arranged to progress WP3 of the HEADSpAcE study which aims to determine the most accurate method of assessing HPV- driven oropharyngeal cancer in a clinical setting. During the meeting the pathologists reviewed and agreed standardisation of methodologies for clinical HPV testing and held virtual workshops centred on interpretation of immunohistochemistry markers and tissue microarrays.
Change of study staff
Kate Ingarfield has moved to Wales and Alex Whitmarsh has joined us as the new study statistician. We wish Kate all the best in her new job and we welcome Alex to the team.
Paper on squamous cell carcinoma in the nasal cavity has now been published
Oli Dale led a descriptive analysis of the 30 people with nasal cavity squamous cell carninoma (SCC). The team found that the nasal cavity SCC is predominantly a disease of male smokers, that most people presented with early stage disease and that survival was worse in those with co-morbidity. The paper is published in Clinical Otolaryngology.
British Association of Head and Neck Oncologists (BAHNO) conference, May 2019
Professor Steve Thomas attended the BAHNO annual scientific meeting in London. He gave a talk covering the reasons for setting up H&N5000, highlighting important results and future plans. There was a great interest in extending the resource and completing a further follow-up.
Voyager study meeting, Tennessee, May 2019
Professor Ness and Dr Pring attended the Voyager study meeting in Memphis, Tennessee. Voyager is an international project looking at the role of germline and somatic DNA mutations in oral and oropharyngeal cancers. The first samples from the H&N5000 study have now been sent over to the laboratory in Memphis for analysis.
German Cancer Research Centre (DKFZ) visit 20 - 30 April 2019, Bristol
Tim Waterboer, Michael Pawlita, Lea Schroeder and Julia Simon from DKFZ, the German Cancer Research Centre, visited Bristol to discuss our ongoing collaboration on a project using serology to identify head and neck cancers that are driven by human papilloma virus (HPV). The H&N5000 team are identifying any additional samples that can be allocated to this exciting project.
H&N5000, DKFZ and ICEP collaboration meeting 29 April 2019, Bristol
Representatives from the Bristol University ICEP (Intergrative Cancer Epidemiology Programme) team, DKFZ (German Cancer Research Centre) and H&N5000 met to share ideas and discuss possible future collaborations. Researchers gave a series of short talks followed by discussion on ideas for future projects.
Last Data Capture Form and final data queries
All the Follow-up Study data capture forms and all data queries issued have now been returned. We are completing some final cleaning and coding which we hope to finish by the end of June. We would like to thank all of the site teams for their help and support with the data collection.
HEADSpAcE study meeting Lyon, France on 1-2 March 2019
Professor Ness, Dr Pring and Professor Thomas attended the first annual meeting of the HEADSpAcE study. HEADSpAcE aims to look in to the reasons for poor prognosis of head and neck cancers and predictors of prognosis. The project is funded by the European Union and brings together an international consortium of 15 organisations across Europe and South America.
PredicTR-2 Study Meeting 25 January 2019
Professor Ness, Dr Pring and Professor Thomas attended the PredicTR-2 study meeting held in Birmingham. H&N5000 is working closely with the PredictR team on a tissue based biomarker study that aims to predict the response to different treatments for patients diagnosed with oropharyngeal cancer.
