Section of Oncology Newsletter 2018

Thank you for making the recent BAUS section of Oncology meeting a great success. Over 200 people (highest ever number of delegates) joined us in Edinburgh for a lively and interesting 2 days focussed on Renal and rarer cancers. We have picked out some of the highlights and ‘take home messages’ from the section meeting in November to give you a snapshot of what our delegates enjoyed. A preview to whet your appetites for the Oncology sessions at the main BAUS meeting in June. If you have events, ideas, projects you would like us to publicise then let us know and we will try to include them in the next newsletter due out in June 2018.

Wishing you all a happy, healthy and successful 2018.

Krishna Narahari (section Committee Member) & Jo Cresswell (Chair of the Section of Oncology)

Highlights & Take Home messages from Section meeting Nov 2017

Thank you to the 85 attendees who shared their feedback, some of the highlights below. A lot of people commented on how much they had learned from a meeting that offered updates in diseases that are not common enough for us to have clear pathways, and do crop up in our MDTs regularly. The sessions on renal cancer were topical and entertaining.

All we needed to know about Renal cancer – diagnosis, surgery and ablation, training upper tract surgeons
Beware of aggressive behaviour of Micropapillary bladder cancer- if you are not seeing any of these in your MDT, check with your pathologist that variants are being reported fully
Functional (hormone profile) assessment prior to radical orchidectomy for testis cancer / OncoTESE for infertility associated with testis cancer
Much improved morbidity profile of groin dissection for penile cancer, particularly using MIS
Need for ongoing fellowship based training for advanced open renal surgery (it’s not all robotics!)
The complimentary teaching Session on Urological Anatomy was a major hit for trainees and consultant colleagues and we will run another teaching session in November 2018.
Congratulations to Nina Patrick and Francesca Kum who won the Best Paper and Best Poster prizes.

Co-opting a colleague to represent cancer practice in a general urology setting.

Since our last communication, we invited colleagues from general urology units to apply to join the committee. Thank you to all of you who applied. Rachel Morrison from Harrogate has been co-opted and joined the team in September 2017 for a 2-year tenure. Rachel brings with her a wealth of experience and in particular helps us maintain focus on core oncological issues relevant to all units, not just cancer centres. Please don’t hesitate to contact Rachel or any committee member to help us work for you.

Meetings

BAUS Annual Meeting 25- 27th June 2018

Ben Challacombe, Section Secretary, and the committee are working on this year’s meetings. There will be sessions on haematuria diagnostics and prostate cancer as part of the BAUS Summer meeting. We are delighted to welcome Prof Matt Nielsen from John’s Hopkins, and Prof Alan Partin as well as home-grown talent including the trainee collaborative leading the IDENTIFY study (see research section).

Date for the diary: Section of Oncology Meeting (6th and 7th December 2018, York)

We will be focussing on Pelvic cancer. Abstract submission will open in July with prizes for the best trainee presentations. Following the success of last year’s teaching session, we will be offering a free training session on the second afternoon. More details to follow closer to the time and in our June newsletter. This is work in progress so please drop us a line if you would like to see a particular topic covered - contact details here.

Audit Update

Complex operations database and audit forms a large part of the sections work. Please do let us know your views on the utility of the datasets, how they can develop/change. Some of the information is mandated, other aspects are open to modification. Later this year we will be seeking applications for new audit leads.

The current audit leads are:

Cystectomy

Ed Rowe
Jo Cresswell

Prostatectomy

Jim Adshead
Krishna Narahari

Nephrectomy

Ben Challacombe
Richard Napier-Hemy

Urological Cancer Research

A key remit of the section is to support urological research. If you would like us to help promote your research project, get in touch. The following is an update on urology-led research trials in the UK:

IDENTIFY – Run by the BURST trainee research collaborative. Includes patients undergoing haematuria assessment for the presence of bladder and upper tract cancer. It is currently running in 115 sites. The main outcomes of the project include establishing the contemporary prevalence of urinary tract cancer in patients presenting with haematuria.

Register your interest by 28th February 2018, here.

Bladder Cancer Trials

HIVEC III - Jo Cresswell was the lead applicant on a trial proposal to compare heated MMC to BCG in NMIBC. The Section of Oncology supported this collaborative project. A strong protocol and trial team was put together and was selected to submit a full application to the HTA for a multicentre trial. A much needed alternative to unreliable BCG supplies. Alas at the final hurdle the funders were not able to support. The team will regroup and consider how to take this forward. Thank you to all section members who expressed their support for this project.

PHOTO - Newly diagnosed int/high risk NMIBC randnomised to white light or blue light TURBT. (CI Rakesh Heer) - link

Trials now closed to recruitment. We hope to showcase the results at future meetings.

CALIBER - Low risk bladder cancer randomised to chemoresection with MMC or standard surgical care (CI Hugh Mostafid) - link.

HIVEC II -Intermediate risk NMIBC randomised to standard MMC or hyperthermic MMC (CI John Kelly)

Prostate Cancer Trials

TroMbone. A feasibility RCT testing radical prostatectomy in oligometastatic prostate cancer is open to recruitment at the following centres: The Royal Marsden, Guy's and St Thomas', UCLH, Guildford and Oxford (CI Prasanna Sooriakumaran) - link

Renal Cancer Trials

RAMPART -Renal Adjuvant MultiPle Arm Randomised Trial : A phase II/III multi-arm, multi-stage trial of adjuvant therapy in patients with resected primary renal cell carcinoma (RCC) at high or intermediate risk of relapse.

NAXIVA -Neoadjuvant study of axitinib for reducing extent of venous tumour thrombus in clear cell renal cell cancer with IVC invasion - link

Grant Funding Opportunity

ABC Improving Outcomes for Patients Programme 2018

Details on how to apply and guidelines are below. The Programme opens for applications on 30 November 2017 and deadline for completed applications is 28 February 2018. For this round we are also offering an opportunity to submit an expression of interest and to discuss your idea with a mentor - this support is available from 01 November 2017 until the application closing date.

Action Bladder Cancer UK website

Kind regards

Section of Oncology