NNUH first in the world to recruit patient for lung cancer research study
He'll take part in a study to see whether a breath test can detect early signs of lung cancer
The Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital has become the first site in the world to recruit patients to a clinical trial looking at developing a breath test for earlier diagnosis of lung cancer.
70 year old Trevor Jackson, from Cringleford, is the first patient to take part in the trial.
He was recruited by Professor Eleanor Mishra’s team at the National Institute for Health and Care Research Norfolk Clinical Research Facility based at the Quadram Institute, in Norwich.
He will be taking part in the study which could help identify patients with lung cancer at a much earlier stage to increase the chances of curative therapies.
Trevor explained his involvement: “I had pneumonia at Christmas and ended up having a CT scan which showed something on my lung.
"Luckily, I’ve been given the all-clear, and they asked if I’d be interested in taking part in this research. I was more than happy because you never know, it might help someone else.”
Prof Mishra, Respiratory Consultant and Principal Investigator, said: “Lung cancer has the highest death rate for any cancer in the UK. The earlier we catch lung cancer, the more likely we are to be able to cure people. This study has the potential to enable much earlier lung cancer diagnosis, and therefore save many lives.”
Billy Boyle, co-founder and CEO at Owlstone Medical, the company behind the breath biopsy technology, said: “With the recruitment of the first patients into Phase 2, we are excited to continue to progress a test that has the potential to transform lung cancer diagnosis by substantially increasing the uptake of testing, leading to more cases of lung cancer being caught early and significantly reducing mortality and costs."
In total up to 350 people will take part in the study across three sites in Europe and six sites in the UK.