Publish date: 16 July 2022
More than 140,000 people – of which over 22,000 are from Cheshire and Merseyside – have volunteered for the world’s largest trial of a blood test that can detect more than 50 types of cancer, as part of the NHS’s drive to catch the disease when it is easier to treat.
Less than a year into the clinical trial of the test – which potentially offers earlier detection of hard to spot cancers, even before symptoms appear – the NHS-Galleri study has hit its recruitment target.
Mobile clinics have visited most parts of the sub-region, starting with the national launch in Runcorn last September and moving to areas including Liverpool, Warrington, St Helens, Wirral and Chester.
Later this month, people who took part in Runcorn will start receiving letters inviting them back for their first follow-up test, with the mobile clinic returning to the town in September.
Cheshire & Merseyside Cancer Alliance (CMCA) has been facilitating the study and is helping to ensure that participants who test positive get the necessary hospital appointments for further investigations.
CMCA Medical Director Dr Chris Warburton said: “This is a really important study and it is a huge achievement that we have enrolled 140,000 trial volunteers nationally.
“I want to thank everyone in Merseyside and Cheshire who has taken part. We are really proud that so many people have come forward to help from the communities this study has visited.
“The Cancer Alliance has worked with hospitals and GP practices across Cheshire and Merseyside to roll out this test and it is important that the people who took part return for follow-up appointments.
“While the first year of the trial may pick up cancers that have existed for some time, the second and third years provide the best opportunity to explore the expected benefits of finding new cancers at an early stage when treatment is generally more successful. This will help us work out how the test might be used alongside the existing NHS cancer screening programme.
“The NHS Long Term Plan committed to increasing the proportion of cancers caught early from half to three-quarters and the Galleri test could be one of the major ways we can achieve this.”
Thanks to national NHS campaigns and early diagnosis initiatives, urgent cancer referrals have been at record levels in England over the past 12 months – almost one-fifth higher than before the pandemic.
NHS ‘one stop shops’ have already delivered more than one million checks and tests, including for cancer, since the rollout began, with over 90 community diagnostic centres (CDCs) offering MRI, CT and other services closer to patients’ homes, often in the heart of local communities.
The Cancer Alliance’s Senior Responsible Officer Dr Liz Bishop is leading the rollout of CDCs in Cheshire and Merseyside, with five now operating and four planned to open in the next 12 months.
Other NHS initiatives to find cancer early include high street pharmacies spotting signs of the disease and sending people for checks, and roaming lung and liver scanning trucks visiting communities.
Jon Hayes, CMCA Managing Director, said: “It is wonderful news that the NHS-Galleri study has hit this national milestone. I know that in Cheshire and Merseyside clinicians from both secondary and primary care have worked hard to make this trial a success and we are looking forward to seeing the results when they are made available.
“This could be a game-changing test to catch cancers earlier and so save many thousands of lives each year.”
Those joining the trial were aged of 50 to 77 years old and did not have signs of cancer at the time of enrolment. The trial team invited people from a wide range of backgrounds and ethnicities to ensure results are relevant for as many different people as possible.
Once participants have attended follow up appointments, researchers, including teams at The Cancer Research UK & King’s College London Cancer Prevention Trial Unit, can begin to understand if the test could be used as part of the NHS cancer screening programme.
The test works by finding chemical changes in fragments of DNA that shed from tumours into the bloodstream. If successful, the NHS in England plans to roll out the test to a further one million people across 2024 and 2025. While it is too early to report on the results of the trial, a number of participants have been referred for urgent NHS cancer investigations following the detection of a cancer signal.
You can read a blog about the milestone here.
Watch a video about the trial below...