Five projects across Northern Ireland and Wales have been awarded a share of £1 million as part of the SBRI Cancer Challenge, which seeks innovations with the potential to offer earlier and faster diagnosis, reduced waiting times, and improved treatment for cancer patients.
The five innovations include CYTED Ltd’s early disease detection with non-endoscopic diagnostic technology; IBEX Medical Analytics Ltd’s AI-powered diagnostics for pathology; Cansense Ltd’s AI-based modelling for bowel cancer testing; Qure AI Technologies Ltd’s algorithms to increase speed and efficiency with AI triage and prioritisation for lung cancer; and Future Perfect Healthcare Ltd’s pre-cancer registry which identifies at-risk patients using genomic testing of tumours and clinical data.
Mike Nesbitt, health minister for Northern Ireland, spoke of the need for innovative solutions to help deliver better outcomes for patients, adding: “This Cancer Challenge gives us the opportunity to test and integrate promising new approaches into mainstream care. It also demonstrates how cross-departmental and regional collaboration can drive meaningful change.”
Learnings from each of the projects are expected to be shared with commissioners and clinicians across Northern Ireland and Wales in Spring of 2025.
Innovation in cancer diagnosis and treatment
In November, Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals shared details of how AI and imaging tools are being utilised across the trust, with an aim to reduce waiting times for x-ray results, and support cancer diagnosis and cancer treatment. The trust is running a project aiming to speed up the diagnosis of mouth cancer, inviting patients to attend Barking’s CDC to have photos taken by a clinical photography team which can then be examined by a head and neck consultant, with patients “getting a call back within a day or so to confirm whether they have cancer or not”. The launch followed a trial in which head and neck consultants blind reported on photos without full medical history, which “established an image was enough to make a correct diagnosis”.
Last month, Somerset NHS Foundation Trust announced that it had launched a new self-referral service aimed at supporting the process of getting checked for bowel cancer. The service utilises cancer detection specialist C the Signs technology, where patients can check their symptoms on the platform and use an online self-referral form if required. The referral form is said to take around 10 minutes to complete and can be completed online or over the phone.
University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire has been utilising a new imager for cancer patients undergoing tumour removal surgery. Known as the AURA 10 mobile PET-CT imager, the device scans a specimen and uses high-resolution, submillimetre images to decipher whether all of a tumour has been removed. It was developed by Belgian company XEOS and has since been used for the first time by UHCW on a patient with a carcinoma of the jaw.
A recent review of cancer services in Wales outlined that “despite increased investment, there is a continuing failure to meet the national performance targets for cancer”, highlighting risks to patient safety from fragmented digital systems and the need for more consistent national data. Although the review identified examples of investment in cancer services and planned care such as rapid diagnostic centres and Velindre NHS Trust’s new cancer centre, it found the pace at which new developments like digital cellular pathology and lung cancer screening are taken forward “can be slow”.
