News

A £1.2 million research programme is underway in Nottingham to develop ground-breaking technologies to diagnose and treat cholangiocarcinoma, a form of cancer that often leads to extremely poor survival rates among patients.

The project brings together researchers from the BRC’s GI & Liver Theme with experts in medicine, endoscopy, engineering, robotics, physics, imaging, bio-electrics and genomics at the University of Nottingham - along with surgeons at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust - to improve survival and quality of life for patients with cholangiocarcinoma.

Funded by UKRI and supported by AMMF – the cholangiocarcinoma charity – the project is investigating the development of an innovative new, flexible robotic medical device and wireless electrical treatment intended to diagnose, map and treat cholangiocarcinoma (bile duct cancer).

Only between seven to 20 per cent of people with the disease will survive for five years once the cancer is detected. Cholangiocarcinoma grows along patients’ bile ducts – narrow passages inside the digestive system that are very hard to access - often without symptoms, and is not diagnosed by routine scans.

Diagnosis relies on the microscopy of tissue samples. However, when blocked, the bile duct collapses, making it even harder to obtain samples due to further narrowing.

Project leader Professor Guru Aithal, Theme Lead for Gastrointestinal & Liver research at Nottingham BRC, said:

“Around 3,000 people in the UK are diagnosed with this form of cancer every year. This is a very difficult form of tumour for clinicians to detect, as patients often present with an advanced form of the disease, making it harder to treat.

“Our aim is to develop new approaches that can be used to improve early diagnosis of bile duct, liver and pancreatic cancers by identifying new indicators of different cancer types and creating diagnostic tools to access the affected areas.”

Professor Dhanny Gomez, Consultant Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary (HPB) surgeon at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, who is also a member of the project team, said: “Achieving accurate diagnosis and staging is crucial, to enable appropriate of counselling patients for high-risk surgery for this devastating disease.”