South Shields

Bowel cancer is the second commonest cause of cancer death in the UK with 16000 people dying per year. Although the NHS Bowel Cancer Screening Programme (BCSP) detects cancers at an earlier stage only 10% of all cancers are detected through screening. Currently, the only criteria for screening is age and no account is taken of other known risk factors such as smoking, alcohol, family history or obesity. Stool FIT (a new stool test which detects blood that can't be seen with the naked eye) will be introduced into the English BCSP, but there is poor evidence for its use in patients presenting with symptoms. There is also emerging data that there may be differences in the gut bacteria of people with and without cancer or pre cancerous bowel polyps (adenomas). This will be a national multi-centre study over 5-years. 10000 Patients undergoing colonoscopy as part of BCSP or due to symptoms will be recruited. Patients will be asked to fill in a health questionnaire, have their height, weight, waist circumference measured. Patients will also receive blood tests, stool tests or saliva tests depending on the indication for their colonoscopy. The results of the colonoscopy and any samples taken will be collated. Patients will receive a patient experience questionnaire or food frequency questionnaire. A further 10,000 patients from the North of England will be consented to be contacted for future studies with some of the information above collected. The aim of this study is to develop a risk prediction model to help determine which patients are at highest risk of having adenomas or bowel cancer. The investigators will also explore the significance of the gut bacteria composition in patients with adenomas or cancer to help inform this risk model. Additionally the investigators will develop a large platform of patients who consent to be contacted for future research.

Our intent is to establish the International Registry to Improve Outcomes in Men with Advanced Prostate Cancer (IRONMAN) as a prospective, international cohort of minimum 5,000 men with advanced cancer, including men with mHSPC and M0/M1 CRPC. The goal is to establish a population-based registry and recruit patients across academic and community practices from Australia, Barbados, Brazil, Canada, Ireland, Jamaica, Kenya, Nigeria, Norway, Spain, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom (UK), and the United States (US). Target accrual number and number of participating sites are subject to change based on accrual, funding, and interest in participation by other international sites. This cohort study will facilitate a better understanding of the variation in care and treatment of advanced prostate cancer across countries and across academia and community based practices. Detailed data will be collected from patients at study enrollment and then during follow-up, for a minimum of five years. Patients will be followed prospectively for overall survival, clinically significant adverse events, comorbidities, changes in cancer treatments, and PROMs. PROMs questionnaires will be collected at enrollment and every three months thereafter. Physician Questionnaires will be collected from all participating sites at patient enrollment, time of first change in treatment and/or one year follow-up, at each subsequent change of treatment, and discontinuation of treatment. As such, this registry will help identify the treatment sequences or combinations that optimize overall survival and PROMs for men with mHSPC and M0/M1 CRPC. By collecting blood at enrollment, time of first change in treatment and/or one year follow-up (plasma, cell free DNA, buffy coat / RNA), this registry will further identify and validate molecular phenotypes of disease that predict response and resistance to specific therapeutics. Additionally, every effort will be made to collect blood specimen at each subsequent change in treatment due to progression of disease. When feasible, existing tumor tissue may be collected for correlation with described blood based studies. All samples will be used for future research. This cohort study will provide the research community with a unique biorepository to identify biomarkers of treatment response and resistance.

Community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) that is of sufficient severity to require admission to an intensive care unit (ICU) is associated with substantial mortality. Patients with pneumonia who are being treated in an ICU will receive therapy that consists of many different treatments, as many as 20 or 30. These treatments act together to treat both the infection and its effects on the body. When treating a patient, doctors choose from many different treatments, most of which are known or believed to be safe and effective. However, doctors don't always know which treatment option is the better one, as individuals or groups of individuals may respond differently. This study aims to help doctors understand which treatments work best. This clinical study has been designed in a way that allows the information from patients already in the study to help new patients joining the study. Most studies aren't able to do that. REMAP-CAP has been designed to: * Evaluate multiple treatment strategies, at the same time, in the same patient. * Reach platform conclusions when sufficient data is accrued, rather than when a pre-specified sample size is reached * Utilise data that is already accrued to increase the likelihood that patients within the trial are randomised to treatments that are more likely to be beneficial * New questions can be substituted into the trial as initial questions are answered, meaning that the trial can be perpetual or open-ended * Interactions between interventions in different domains can be evaluated It is reasonable to presume that any pandemic respiratory infection of major significance to public health will manifest as life-threatening respiratory infection including Severe Acute Respiratory illness and severe Community Acquired Pneumonia (CAP) with concomitant admission to hospital, and for some patients, admission to an Intensive Care Unit (ICU). Previous pandemics and more localized outbreaks of respiratory emerging infections have resulted in severe CAP and ICU admission. Previous pandemics and outbreaks of emerging infectious diseases have outlined the urgent need for evidence, preferably from Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs), to guide best treatment. However, there are substantial challenges associated with being able to organize such trials when the time of onset of a pandemic and its exact nature are unpredictable. As an adaptive platform trial that enrolls patients during the interpandemic period, REMAP-CAP is ideally positioned to adapt, in the event of a respiratory pandemic, to evaluate existing treatments as well as novel approaches.

RATIONALE: The current global standard of care after nephrectomy for localised RCC therefore remains active monitoring (i.e., observation by clinical and radiological means). 30-40% patients with initially localised RCC develop metastatic disease following nephrectomy. Need for adjuvant therapy is most marked in the high risk population where outcomes are predictably poor. However, the risk of recurrence in patients who are of intermediate risk of recurrence is not insignificant. Unfortunately, despite showing efficacy in advanced RCC, the results in the adjuvant setting, so far, are inconclusive. AIM: RAMPART is a phase III Multi-Arm Multi-Stage randomised controlled platform trial, initiated with three arms. The trial is assessing if durvalumab monotherapy or the combination of durvalumab and tremelimumab can improve Disease Free Survival (DFS) or Overall Survival (OS) compared to the current global standard-of-care (active monitoring). At the start of recruitment, patients with Leibovich scores 3 to 11 will be eligible for randomisation. Accrual of intermediate risk patients (Leibovich scores 3 5) will stop after 3 years or when intermediate risk patients contribute 25% of the total accrual target, whichever is earlier. Recruitment of patients with Leibovich scores 6 to 11 will continue until the accrual target is reached.

What is the problem being addressed? Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a common lung condition in the United Kingdom, with a prevalence of 4.5% in population ≥40 years and rising4. In addition to daily symptoms such as cough and breathlessness that limit physical activity, people living with COPD are prone to unpredictable deteriorations in their health called 'exacerbations'. Exacerbations are sometimes severe enough to lead to hospital admission and are often driven by infections. A systematic review of patient outcomes in COPD identified exacerbations, especially severe hospitalised exacerbations, as the aspect of COPD that patients found most difficult to live with. Prior to the pandemic there were around 115,000 admissions to hospital with COPD exacerbations per annum6 and admissions are now returning to that level. Exacerbations are more common in the winter with greater circulation of respiratory viruses, and thus the burden of hospitalised exacerbations contributes to winter National Health Service (NHS) bed pressures and cost to the NHS. The annual healthcare cost for people with moderate and severe exacerbation of COPD in England was estimated to be nearly £1 billion in 20227. A particular problem after a hospitalised COPD exacerbation is re-admission to hospital. The National Asthma and COPD Audit Programme (NACAP) has shown that the re-admission rate is 23% at 30 days and 43% at 90 days2. A systematic review conducted by the authors identified comorbidities, previous exacerbations and increased length of stay as risk factors for 30- and 90-day all-cause readmission5. There are many interventions that can reduce the risk of COPD exacerbations but these are incompletely effective8. There is also evidence to suggest that earlier intervention with standard exacerbation treatment of antibiotics and/or corticosteroids (called a 'rescue pack') can hasten recovery, with a lessened chance of hospital admission9. As part of standard NHS care2, patients with COPD should have a 'discharge bundle' implemented, although this is often poorly delivered and has not been definitively shown to impact outcomes (likely because the wrong outcomes were chosen, and the bundle was poorly implemented)10. The provision of rescue packs is not a standard component of discharge bundles but these are sometimes provided according to local service preference3. Additionally, in usual clinical practice, some patients will have been prescribed rescue packs from primary care (GP) or a community respiratory team (CRT) prior to being hospitalised with COPD. Furthermore, patients may or may not have access to rescue packs from the GP or the CRT after hospital discharge. Although rescue packs are part of NICE guidance2, the available evidence suggests they are not effective unless provided in the context of a more comprehensive management/education plan that supports patients in their appropriate use11. In practice this usually does not happen3, with evidence that a patient with COPD will receive variable or often no support; with some patients receiving rescue packs on demand without considering antimicrobial resistance, predictable side-effects from steroid overuse, or reviewing appropriateness. The investigators have pilot data that show receiving a rescue pack on hospital discharge is controversial as the hospital team is not, in general, the team that provides ongoing support to use these. There is thus recognised over- and under-use of rescue packs, associated harm from these medicines and variable provision. Providing a rescue pack, with education on how to use and support for when to use, has not been specifically tested in the high-risk 90-day period for readmission following a hospitalised exacerbation. It is the investigators' hypothesis that rescue packs on discharge in addition to a comprehensive self-supported management plan, consisting of the Asthma+Lung UK written management plan and twice weekly automated phone and or text messaging during this 90 day high risk period, will reduce readmissions by 20% compared to standard care. Why is this research important in terms of improving the health of patients and health and care services? Reducing re-admission through provision of supported rescue pack use would benefit people living with COPD and the NHS. A reduction in readmissions of 20% could save the NHS £86 million per quarter (£344 million per annum). Conversely, demonstrating that rescue packs are not effective when used in this way will address controversy about use, and reduce pressure on antimicrobial resistance and harm from over-use of oral corticosteroids. Integrated care systems are rapidly developing out-of-hospital support for people with exacerbations of COPD including digitally supported virtual wards. The proposed trial will define the role of supported rescue pack provision in the design and implementation of these programmes, enhancing their ability to reduce demands on urgent and acute care. Whether positive or negative, this trial will help to reduce the current variation in service provision by providing a definitive answer to the study question. Furthermore, preventing exacerbations of COPD have been identified as a priority by the James Lind Alliance (JLA) Priority Setting Partnership (PSP)12.

TRACC Part B: Despite potentially curative surgery +/- adjuvant chemotherapy, a proportional of patients with early stage CRC will experience disease relapse. Current tools for surveillance, e.g., blood sampling for tumour markers (CEA) are neither sensitive nor specific. We hypothesise that detection of mutations in circulating free DNA (cfDNA) in plasma can predict relapse in patients with early stage CRC. Circulating cell free tumour DNA (ctDNA) maintains the same mutations that are present in tumour. In colorectal cancer CRC, primary tumours and\& metastases exhibit high genomic concordance. Therefore the TRACC study TRACC Part B is investigating whether serial blood samples taken from in patients with stage II and III fully resected early stage CRC colorectal cancer that have undergone potentially curative surgery, blood samples to can be used to detect and\& quantify ctDNA may in order to identify minimal residual disease MRD and predict relapse earlier than existing methods. CtDNA may ultimately help identify a subset of patients that are or are unlikely to benefit from adjuvant chemotherapy and could therefore safely spare some patients from receiving unnecessary chemotherapy \& its associated side-effects. TRACC Part C: We hypothesis that ctDNA guided adjuvant chemotherapy administration will enable biomarker driven selection of patients who would and would not benefit from adjuvant chemotherapy and thereby reduce the proportion of patient receiving unnecessary adjuvant chemotherapy, reducing the potential side effects associated with it, but without compromising disease free survival (DFS). : This part of the study will use tThe blood test ctDNA result from a post-operative blood sample willto guide adjuvant chemotherapy treatment decisions. The study aims to demonstrate that athe de -escalation strategy of ctDNA guided adjuvant chemotherapy is non-inferior to standard of care treatment as measured by 3 year DFS in patients with high risk stage II and stage III CRC, in those who have no evidence of MRD (ctDNA negative). after surgery for patients with colorectal cancer who are following the standard of care pathway. Patients are randomised at the post- operative time point to: Arm A (standard of care adjuvant chemotherapy), or Arm B (ctDNA guided adjuvant chemotherapy) arm. For the ct DNA guided arm, patients who are ctDNA negative at this time point will have their chemotherapy de-escalated.