The Urology Department at the University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust (UHMBT) have proudly been selected as one of around 30 centres from across the UK to take part in a National Institute for Health Research study set up by University College London to determine whether bladder cancer can be detected from a simple urine sample.
UHMBT was able to recruit patients to the DETECT ii study to see if a test called UroMark could be used to detect bladder cancer by doing a special test on a simple urine sample. Anybody who was newly diagnosed or had recurring bladder cancer was offered entry to the study.
The UHMBT Urology Department recruited over 25 patients. These patients have been interviewed to find out their experience of being diagnosed with bladder cancer and over 24 months, they will be asked to give some urine tests to see if the UroMark test (along with the cystoscopy) can detect any cancers.
Sarah Hart, Urology Specialty Doctor, at UHMBT said; “The Urology Team is very proud to have recruited to the DETECT ii study. This is the first study that the Urology department has attempted to recruit to and so it is a fantastic achievement.”
By taking part in the clinical trial, the hope is that in the future, patients may be able to simply provide a urine sample to their GP to test for or even screen for bladder cancer, rather than having to come to hospital for scans and cystoscopies.
Sarah concluded: “Clinical research is hugely important for the future of medicine and it is a great sense of achievement to think we are hopefully changing the future of medicine from Morecambe Bay.
“We didn’t realise how easy it is to promote and recruit to a clinical study, and are now planning to launch our own second clinical research study by the end of 2018.”
For more information about clinical trials at UHMBT, please visit: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/clinical-trials/.
