Our Mission and Objectives
OUR MISSION AND OBJECTIVES
The CRUK Cancer Prevention Trials Unit ( & CPTU) Queen Mary University of London conducts clinical and translational research to advance the earlier diagnosis and prevention of cancer.
We work with a range of national and international collaborators to develop the evidence base for new and improved cancer prevention interventions, screening tests and early detection strategies.
The CPTU's primary objectives are to facilitate high-quality clinical trials and other well-designed studies to advance:
- Cancer prevention via medicinal treatments (with fewer side-effects) and behavioural interventions.
- Prevention through detection of pre-cancerous lesions.
- Cancer early diagnosis through screening.
- Smoking quit rates.
Methods
Our portfolio of primary (community) and secondary (hospital) care trials include:
- Medicinal prevention (of prostate cancer in particular) often using drug re- purposing
- Behavioural interventions in cancer prevention and screening (to improve uptake)
- Diagnostic/screening tests and devices (such as the NHS Galleri test and the Cytosponge for Barrett’s oesophagus)
- Smoking cessation (psychological and pharmacological interventions including e- cigarettes)
- Pragmatic trials of screening interventions (e.g. cervical self-sampling and faecal Immunochemical testing (FIT) in Lynch patients)
- Long-term follow-up of participants from successful RCTs (of breast cancer prevention and treatment in particular);
- Bio-specimen collections for biomarker discovery and validation.
The operational capabilities of the CPTU enable the development of tailored recruitment strategies and electronic data capture solutions for each trial. Our team actively engages in methodological research and implements innovative designs and analyses. In particular, we:
- Investigated novel paradigms that allow for smaller trials with multiple treatment arms.
- Develop and implement new methods to maintain randomised comparisons in the presence of non-compliance or opportunistic cross-over.
- Pave the way for using electronic records for extended follow-up.
- Encourage the use of electronic patient records and computer applications for participant recruitment and management.
- Utilise aggregated data in cluster randomised controlled trials where individual level consent is lacking.
- Conduct research on efficacy, cost-effectiveness and technologies to improve existing and establish new screening programmes.
- Address inequalities in research participation.