A three-year project to enable more local research into the better diagnosis and treatment of lung cancer is to be funded by Rosemere Cancer Foundation.
The charity has agreed to spend £32,590.18 on freezer units and other equipment needed to set up a Cardiothoracic and Biofluid Research Bank that will be housed within the cellular pathology department at the Royal Preston Hospital but will serve the whole of Lancashire and South Cumbria.
The research bank will collect tissue, blood, urine and saliva from patients, who have agreed to donate their samples, and are already undergoing lung cancer treatment at Blackpool Victoria Hospital – Lancashire and South Cumbria’s specialist cardiothoracic disease (heart/lung) centre, which undertakes both counties’ lung cancer surgery.
Local consultants and university scientists will then apply to the bank for gifted specimen samples to help them in their research to identify new treatments and diagnostic tools. The research bank, which it is hoped will be self-financing by the time its Rosemere Cancer Foundation support ends, will also make samples available nationally at cost to pharmaceutical and other UK research centres.
Blackpool-based consultant histopathologist Dr Danielle Bury, who applied for the funding, said: “Lung cancer is the UK’s third most common cancer with rates of the disease higher in the North West than in other parts of the country. We also have a higher than national average lung cancer death rate.
“The development of a tissue and biofluid bank to assist with and facilitate an increase in local level lung cancer research, given its regional prevalence, will therefore be invaluable to improving patient outcomes in the future.”
Dr Bury added: “It will also improve links between our local hospitals and universities, encouraging the development of research interests, and increase the visibility of the region as leading in cancer research.”
Rosemere Cancer Foundation works to bring world class cancer treatments and services to cancer patients from throughout Lancashire and South Cumbria being treated at Rosemere Cancer Centre, the region’s specialist cancer treatment and radiotherapy centre at the Royal Preston Hospital, and also at another eight local hospital cancer units across the two counties, including that at Blackpool Victoria Hospital .
The charity funds cutting edge equipment, research, training and other cancer services and therapies that the NHS is unable to afford. For further information on its work, including how to make a donation, visit www.rosemere.org.uk
