university of leeds

Science Overview 2006/7

The new laboratory continues to facilitate our work proving an excellent environment to pursue cancer research.

This year we have expanded the successful work on quality of surgery in rectal cancer from MRC CRO7 into MRC CLASICC devising a new grading system for colonic cancer. The results suggest major problems with standard colonic surgery with only a quarter of cases receiving optimal surgery. This is important as two thirds of colorectal cancer arises in the colon and we have been able to demonstrate that the prognosis of colon cancer is now worse than that of rectal cancer. We await further follow-up on this series which should mature at the end of 2007. In parallel we have collected a series of 313 colonic cancer cases from Leeds and assessed the quality of surgery confirming that colonic surgery could be improved whilst better than the MRC Clasicc series only 34.5% had optimal surgery. We are currently following up these cases to identify the impact of suboptimal surgery on outcome. Wew are investigating more radical approaches to the surgery of colonic cancer in association with Professor Hohenberger in Ehrlangen, Germany and will be comparing this type of surgery to that practiced in the UK.

We have established a collaboration with the Karolinska Hospital, Sweden and are assessing the benefits of the removal of the levators on the tumour clearance this achieves in low rectal cancer. This type of operation is easily performed and should reduce local recurrence and improve survival. Early results suggest the successful removal of more tissue by the Swedish approach. Pathology protocols have been written by PQ for the NCRI FOXTROT trial of preoperative neoadjuvant chemotherapy vs no chemotherapy in which our grading of colonic cancer will be tested and the low rectal cancer trial where the levator excision vs standard approach will be audited. We will also be supporting the NCRI laparoscopic enhanced vs open recovery trial with pathology.

We have continued to develop the digital pathology platform, adding in new trials (MERCURY and CORE) and in collaboration with Oxford we are developing a platform for the low rectal cancer trial. We have started to develop a site on http://www.virtualpathology.leeds.ac.uk/ where cancer patients can look at cancers, helping them to understand the disease that affects them. For the testing of putative prognostic markers we have embarked upon the creation of a new series of colorectal cancers with 5 year follow up from Leeds with 2000 cases identified and currently being placed in arrays. Further analysis on QUASAR 1 has shown an interesting predictor effect of dUTPase expression and this will be investigated further. With Amsterdam, we have undertaken CGH on a series of small intestinal cancers showing that their genotype is different from gastric cancer and colonic cancer and further studies are in progress.

Link to

YCR science overview 2002/3
YCR science overview 2003/4
YCR science overview 2004/5
YCR science overview 2005/6

Programme of research 2001/2
Programme of research 2002/3
Programme of research 2003/4
Programme of research 2004/5
Programme of research 2005/6
Programme of research 2006/7
Programme of research 2007/8

Publications 2001/2
Publications 2002/3
Publications 2003/4
Publications 2004/5
Publications 2005/6
Publications 2006/7
Publications 2007/8

Reports 2001/2
Reports 2002/3
Reports 2003/4
Reports 2004/5
Reports 2005/6
Reports 2006/7
Reports 2007/8

Leeds PDT own site

Photopharmica Ltd is a company which has been set up to develop the research findings of the PDT group.