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

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

A new approach to breast cancer terminology based on the anatomic site of tumour origin: The importance of radiologic imaging biomarkers Tabár L, Dean PB, Lee Tucker F et al. European Journal of Radiology (2022) 149(7)

Problems With the Canadian National Breast Screening Studies Duffy SW Journal of Breast Imaging (2022) (10)

Benefits and harms of annual, biennial, or triennial breast cancer mammography screening for women at average risk of breast cancer: a systematic review for the European Commission Initiative on Breast Cancer (ECIBC). Canelo-Aybar C, Posso M, Montero N et al. Br J Cancer (2022) 126(2) 673-688
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34837076

Rates of acceptance between opt-out vs opt-in smoking cessation referral strategies among current smokers attending a lung health check offering lung cancer screening Katsampouris E, Kotti T, Ruparel M et al. Lung Cancer (2022) 165(1) S47-S47

A Randomized Trial Comparing Breast Cancer Incidence and Interval Cancers after Tomosynthesis Plus Mammography versus Mammography Alone. Pattacini P, Nitrosi A, Giorgi Rossi P et al. Radiology (2022) (2) 211132
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35103537

Elucidating the role of the kinase activity of endothelial cell focal adhesion kinase in angiocrine signalling and tumour growth Newport E, Pedrosa AR, Lees D et al. Journal of Pathology (2022) 256(7) 235-247

Higher Adenoma Detection Rates at Screening Associated With Lower Long-Term Colorectal Cancer Incidence and Mortality Cross AJ, Robbins EC, Saunders BP et al. Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology (2022) 20(7) e148-e167

Quantifying the duration of the preclinical detectable phase in cancer screening: a systematic review. Geurts SM, Aarts AM, Verbeek AL et al. Epidemiol Health (2022) (2) e2022008
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34990529

Modeling Multicancer Screening Duffy SW, Sasieni P Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers and Prevention (2022) 31(7) 3-4

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.