DETECT-CRC
Early DETECTion of ColoRectal Cancer in Yorkshire (DETECT-CRC): Feasibility study assessing active case finding of colorectal cancer in socio-economically deprived areas.
About the study
Start date: 01 January 2024
End date: 30 June 2026
Background
DETECT-CRC is funded by Yorkshire Cancer Research as part of their ‘For More Life Without Cancer’ grant.
Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the fourth most common cancer in the UK and the second leading cause of cancer deaths. Early detection is crucial, as it drastically increases the chances of successful treatment. However, people living in areas with higher poverty levels (socio-economically deprived areas) often have lower rates of CRC screening and thus receive later diagnoses, leading to poorer outcomes.
Community pharmacists are easily accessible to most people. Nearly 90% of people in England live within a 20 minute walk of a pharmacy. About 84% of the UK population visits a pharmacy at least once a year. People in highly deprived areas have even better access to pharmacies (99.8%) than those in more affluent areas (90.2%). This shows that pharmacies are in a unique position to promote cancer awareness and early detection, especially in disadvantaged communities.
Year 1
During the first year of this project (2024) we will be working with people from these communities, GPs, and pharmacists to co-design a service where people displaying CRC symptoms can be identified in pharmacies, and offered a faecal immunochemical test (FIT). This is a non-invasive test that uses a dipstick to detect early signs of blood in the stool. It is very sensitive at finding colorectal cancer and is widely used to test both people with symptoms and those without symptoms who are getting screened for bowel cancer.
Year 2
During the second year of this project (2025) we will test if the service works by running a randomised controlled trial (RCT). We will randomise 40 pharmacies in Deciles 1 and 2 of multiple deprivation, across South Yorkshire. We will then train half of them to do active case finding and enable them to hand out FIT kits (which currently only GPs can do). We think this will decrease the time to diagnosis, shift detection to earlier (curable) cancer stages, thereby saving lives.
Aims and objectives
- Develop a pharmacy-based active case-finding (ACF) service
- Assess the feasibility of ACF trial to identify people with potential CRC symptoms
- Identify efficiency signal
- Understand and mitigate potential sources of intervention failure
- Perform a preliminary cost-effectiveness analysis for ACF
Project leadership group
- PLG
-
Name Role Organisation Email Dr Matthew Kurien Co-Chief Investigator University of Sheffield - Clinical Medicine matthew.kurien@nhs.net Prof Daniel Hind Co-Chief Investigator University of Sheffield - CTRU d.hind@sheffield.ac.uk Naseeb Ezaydi Study Manager University of Sheffield - CTRU n.ezaydi@sheffield.ac.uk Dana Marbu Research Assistant University of Sheffield - CTRU d.marbu@sheffield.ac.uk George Cleaver Trial Support Officer University of Sheffield - CTRU g.j.cleaver@sheffield.ac.uk Katie Biggs PPI Lead University of Sheffield - CTRU c.e.biggs@sheffield.ac.uk Dr Ines Rombach Statistician University of Sheffield - CTRU i.rombach@sheffield.ac.uk Dr Chloe Thomas Health Economics University of Sheffield - Health Economics and Decision Science c.thomas@sheffield.ac.uk Dr Ravi Sargur Co-Applicant Sheffield Teaching Hospital NHS Trust Dr Alex Ball Co-Applicant Sheffield Teaching Hospital NHS Trust Prof Ian Kellar Behavioural Scientist University of Sheffield - Psychology i.kellar@sheffield.ac.uk Claire Thomas Community Pharmacy Clinical Lead South Yorkshire Integrated Care Board claire.thomas47@nhs.net Dr Jon Dickson Co-Applicant University of Sheffield - Population Health Prof Peter Bath Co-Applicant University of Sheffield - Information School p.a.bath@sheffield.ac.uk Rachel Harris Co-Applicant PPI rachelsianharris@gmail.com Atique Arif Co-Applicant RDaSH atique.arif@nhs.net Rachel Matthews Independent Co-Design Facilitator National Voices Rachel.Matthews@nationalvoices.org.uk
Study updates
The co-design workshops have been completed, and we are now in the process of setting up our intervention pharmacies to ensure everything is in place to start the trial in early January.