A senior nurse at The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre in Liverpool has won a coveted Churchill Fellowship and funding to carry out vital research into a cancer diagnosis many people have never heard of.
Alison Taylor, Nurse Consultant in Acute Oncology at The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre, will travel to Australia to see how they care for people with cancer of unknown primary (CUP) – the diagnosis given when cancer has spread through the body and it’s not possible to tell where it began (the primary cancer).
Around two per cent (2%) of people diagnosed with cancer each year in the UK will be told they have cancer of unknown primary (CUP). Many find out in A&E after going there because they felt very unwell and didn’t know what was wrong. Unfortunately, CUP can be aggressive and there are only a few treatment options.
As a nurse consultant specialising in acute oncology – a field which includes urgent and emergency cancer care – Alison regularly cares for patients with CUP and has seen the impact first-hand.
“I think the pain and psychological effect of being diagnosed with CUP is much higher than for other cancers,” Alison says, “both for patients and their families. People with CUP have to live with so much uncertainty.
Modern cancer treatments are often carefully tailored to specific tumour types, cell changes or gene mutations. When you don’t know where the cancer began and what type of cell changes are involved, it’s harder to treat and it can be harder for people to live with.
I really want to change that by looking at the Australian health system cares for and supports people with CUP and seeing what we can learn from it for the UK.
Alison will visit Melbourne and other parts of Australia to see how genomic testing is being trialled as part of CUP diagnosis and treatment planning, even in the most remote geographical regions. The trial aims to find the best way of routinely building genomics testing into CUP care to try and identify what cell changes are involved so patients get the treatment best suited to them.
“I’m incredibly excited about the opportunity and determined to bring back learning that will help us improve care for people with CUP both here in Cheshire and Merseyside and right across the UK,” says Alison. “I am very grateful to the Churchill Fellowship for selecting me.”
The research trip is funded by the Churchill Fellowship, a charity set up in 1965 as a legacy of Sir Winston Churchill.
A Churchill Fellowship is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, open to all UK adult citizens, to lead the change they want to see. The charity funds applicants to spend between four to eight weeks meeting experts in their field anywhere in the world, in person and/or online, building international networks that promote reciprocal knowledge exchange. It then helps Fellows to make a difference in their community or professional sector in the UK, based on insights inspired by these exchanges.
Alison will spend a month in Australia this Autumn and will write up her findings and recommendations in a report when she returns.
Applications for the next Churchill Fellowships open on 4th September.
