Barts and The London Cancer Centre
Barts and The London Head and Neck Cancer Centre uses advanced treatments and facilities to treat and support patients with types of cancer affecting their head or neck. We provide a multi-disciplinary approach to care – providing medical and surgical treatment as well as supporting patients with a range of therapies before and after treatment.
A one-stop, multi-disciplinary clinic is in place to allow patients to come in for a single appointment to see all their specialists at one time, providing a comprehensive, integrated service. This approach produces quicker results and provides easy access to the most up-to-date treatments (including rehabilitation) and equipment.
Our oncology dieticians ensure that our patients receive the best support available in terms of dietary requirements. This is particularly important for cancer patients who can lose weight during the treatment process, but who must try to maintain their strength.
We are one of a few centres in London that offer Intensity Modulated Radiotherapy (IMRT) for head and neck cancer. This is a very sophisticated method that bends the radiation beams to fit closely to the shape of the cancer. IMRT has revolutionised the non-surgical treatment of head and neck cancer and allows us to target tumours with higher doses of radiation while minimising damage to surrounding healthy tissue. This improves outcomes for the patient.
The treatment also means there is less toxicity, skin reaction, fatigue and a lower risk of osteoradionecrosis (bone damage) and xerostomia (mouth dryness from damage to salivary glands). This delivers a better quality of life for patients during and after treatment.
We use traditional cancer treatments, radiotherapy and chemotherapy, along with advanced techniques in surgery to maximise success and recovery for our patients.
At Barts and The London and the North East London Cancer Network, we are conducting a variety of clinical and translational research studies in head and neck cancer and looking to set up a national tissue bank in mouth cancer.
On the clinical research side we are leading the first ever national prospective randomised surgical trial on the treatment of mouth cancer. This is the SEND study, which is evaluating the role of elective neck dissection in early mouth cancers where there is no clinical or radiological evidence of metastasis.
This study primarily examines clinical outcomes but also looks at quality of life issues. In parallel with this study, tumour tissue and blood will be stored for future basic science research which can be correlated with clinical outcomes in the patients studied.
We have also been the lead UK site for an international study evaluating the benefits of intratumoral injection of a chemotherapy agent combined with a novel technique called electroporation. The patients studied have all been patients with recurrent cancer after standard surgery and radiotherapy or those patients who have been unfortunate enough to develop a second mouth cancer.
We are also collaborating with our psychiatry and psychology colleagues to supervise PhD students studying blood and saliva cytokine levels and standard psychological questionnaires in patients with head and neck and colon cancer. This is to evaluate whether we can identify those patients who will experience undue psychological problems following treatment for their cancer and whether the psychological problem and its treatment has an impact on survival and quality of life.
The clinical oncologists are collaborating with other centres on Intensity Modulated Radiotherapy (IMRT) studies (see above) and have started a clinical study evaluating a novel genetic treatment for head and neck cancers.
In collaboration with the Cancer Research UK laboratories, various innovative studies are being conducted into genetic therapy techniques to treat head and neck cancer.
We have the facilities and surgical interest in photodynamic therapy. Research studies are being developed in this.
Barts and The London Dental Hospital - www.bartsandthelondon.nhs.uk/dentalhospital
Cancerbackup - www.cancerbackup.org.uk/Cancertype/Headneck
Saving Faces - the facial surgery research foundation - www.savingfaces.co.uk