Research

Projects List:

• Breast and Bowel Cancer Screening
• Risk Estimates of Developing Breast Cancer into routine breast screening practice
• Policy Research Unit on cancer awareness, screening and early diagnosis
• Faecal immunochemical testing (FIT) for adenoma surveillance
• The validation of interim outcome measures for the evaluation of interventions promoting increased cancer awareness and early detection
• Strategies to reduce social gradient in Bowel Cancer Screening
• Natural history estimation for screening evaluation and planning
• A Comparison of TOMosynthesis with digital mammography in the UK NHS breast screening programme
• Promoting breast awareness and early presentation among Black women 25-50
• UKLS Lung Screening Trial
• Overdiagnosis in the Mammography Breast

Other Activities

• Member of the National Screening Committee
• Screening Editor, European Guidelines Development Group for Breast Cancer Screening and Early Diagnosis
• Member of the Breast Screening Advisory Committee
• Member of the Bowel Screening Advisory Committee

Major Funding

• 2019-2023- NIHR, Policy Research Unit in Cancer Awareness, Screening and Early Diagnosis, £5M 

Recent Publications

Patient experience and satisfaction with symptomatic faecal immunochemical testing: an explanatory sequential mixed-methods evaluation. Gil N, Su H, Kaur K et al. Br J Gen Pract (2023) 73(2) e104-e114
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36702594

Impact of changes to the interscreening interval and faecal immunochemical test threshold in the national bowel cancer screening programme in England: results from the FIT pilot study Li SJ, Seedher T, Sharples LD et al. British Journal of Cancer (2022) 127(7) 1525-1533

Post-polypectomy surveillance interval and advanced neoplasia detection rates: a multicenter, retrospective cohort study. Cross AJ, Robbins EC, Pack K et al. Endoscopy (2022) 54(2) 948-958
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35405762

The role of computer-assisted radiographer reporting in lung cancer screening programmes Hall H, Ruparel M, Quaife SL et al. European Radiology (2022) 32(7) 6891-6899

Using ISARIC 4C mortality score to predict dynamic changes in mortality risk in COVID-19 patients during hospital admission Crocker-Buque T, Myles J, Brentnall A et al. PLoS ONE (2022) 17(7)

Benefit of Biennial Fecal Occult Blood Screening on Colorectal Cancer in England: A Population-Based Case-Control Study Castanon A, Parmar D, Massat NJ et al. Journal of the National Cancer Institute (2022) 114(7) 1262-1269

EP01.06-006 Impact of Low Dose CT Screening on Cause of Death in Different Socio-Economic Groups Davies MPA, Vulkan D, Gabe R et al. Journal of Thoracic Oncology (2022) 17(10) s190

Imaging biomarkers of breast cancers originating from the major lactiferous ducts: Ductal adenocarcinoma of the breast, DAB Tabár L, Dean PB, Lee Tucker F et al. European Journal of Radiology (2022) 154(7)

Impact of Low Dose CT Screening on Cause of Death in Different Socio-Economic Groups Davies MPA, Vulkan D, Gabe R et al. JOURNAL OF THORACIC ONCOLOGY (2022) 17(11) S190-S190
https://www.webofscience.com/api/gateway?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:000858678100305&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=612ae0d773dcbdba3046f6df545e9f6a

Selection of eligible participants for screening for lung cancer using primary care data O'Dowd EL, Ten Haaf K, Kaur J et al. Thorax (2022) 77(7) 882-890

Team

Statistician
Oleg Blyuss, Amanda Dibden, Roberta Maroni, Daniel Vulkan

Study Coordinator
Jonathan Myles

Senior Data Manager
Dharmishta Parmar

Administrator
Oley Begum

Biography

I am a statistician by training, educated at the University of Edinburgh and Imperial College, London. I have worked in the UK, Singapore, France, Sweden and Russia.

For the last three decades, my research has been mainly in cancer epidemiology, prevention and screening. I worked on the pioneering Swedish Two-County Trial of breast cancer screening, on which the UK's national breast screening programme was based.

Since then I have taken a major role in a number of other trials of cancer screening, in breast, colorectal and lung cancer. These include the UK Trial of Flexible Sigmoidoscopy whose results changed national policy within weeks of publication, and the FH01 study of annual mammography in young women at enhanced familial risk of breast cancer, which contributed to the NICE guidelines on breast cancer risk management.

I am currently Director of the Policy Research Unit in Cancer Awareness, Screening and Early Diagnosis, funded by the Department of Health.

It is a collaboration between researchers from seven institutions (Queen Mary University of London, UCL, King's College London, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Hull York Medical School, Durham University and Peninsula Medical School). The aim of the unit is to carry out research to inform policy to promote earlier diagnosis of cancer, symptomatically or by screening, and as a consequence bring down mortality from cancer.

In our strand of the Unit in Queen Mary University of London, our team concentrates on research aimed at evaluating cancer screening programmes, and devising innovations to these which will improve their effect on death from cancer, enhance their acceptability to the public and minimise side effects of screening, such as false positive rates.