Harrogate charity director hails new initiative to boost 'lifesaving scans' in Yorkshire

The joint project between the University of Cambridge and West Yorkshire and Harrogate Cancer Alliance will seek to find ways of increasing and speeding up cancer scans.

Hundreds more people in Yorkshire will benefit from life-saving abdomen scans following new funding from Harrogate charity Yorkshire Cancer Research,

The scans, which can help detect kidney, stomach, colon, liver, pancreatic and bowel cancers, will be provided alongside lung health checks, which are being rolled out across the region as part of a new National Lung Screening Programme.

Previous research funded by the charity has demonstrated that kidney and lung screening can be combined to save lives. Dr Stuart Griffiths, Director of Research at Harrogate-based Yorkshire Cancer Research said: “Screening people before they experience any symptoms means cancer can be found at a very early stage, crucially giving them access to more lifesaving treatment options and treatment that’s easier to recover from. “Kidney cancer does not have any form of screening programme yet, and that particularly impacts Yorkshire, where people are diagnosed with kidney cancer at a disproportionately higher rate than the national average.

"Providing abdomen scans can save lives by finding kidney cancer and other cancers, too.”

Clinical trial lead Grant Stewart, Professor of Surgical Oncology at the University of Cambridge and Honorary Consultant Urological Surgeon at Addenbrooke's Hospital said: “We are delighted Yorkshire Cancer Research is funding the next step in our work to determine if scanning the tummy of people at the same time as they attend for lung cancer screening can identify cancers and other serious conditions in the abdomen.”

More than 900 people aged 55-74 from across Yorkshire at high risk of abdomen cancers and lung cancer will have the combined screening through the new study, which has been named TACTICAL1.

The research team plans to demonstrate that a national-scale study is achievable, with the ultimate aim of introducing the option of an abdomen scan to all lung health checks nationally.

Results from an earlier clinical trial funded by the charity called the Yorkshire Kidney Screening Trial showed that combining screening for lung and kidney cancers could help identify undiagnosed cases of kidney cancer, other cancers of the abdomen and life-threatening.

Every year, more than 1,000 people in Yorkshire are diagnosed with kidney cancer, making it the sixth most common cancer in Yorkshire.

The proportion of people diagnosed with kidney cancer in Yorkshire is higher than the England average, and more than 4 in 10 people are diagnosed at a late stage when it is often harder to treat.

One Yorkshire patient, Ernest Parsons, attended a free lung health check in 2021 and says that “if I hadn’t had a kidney scan, I wouldn’t be here today."

“If it saves lives, it’s worth it” regarding TACTICAL1 and similar studies."

Lucy Turner, Managing Director of Humber and North Yorkshire Cancer Alliance, said: “The Lung Cancer Screening programme detected 107 cancers in our region in the past year. It would be very welcome to see this combined with kidney screening through TACTICAL1.”