Spotlight on the paediatric oncology research team – Childhood Cancer Awareness Month
September marks Childhood Cancer Awareness Month and we are shining a spotlight on the paediatric oncology research team at Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital.
September marks Childhood Cancer Awareness Month and we are shining a spotlight on the paediatric oncology research team at Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital.
The team has a large research portfolio from phase I to phase III studies, covering the full range of childhood cancers, both haematological (relating to the blood) and solid tumours. This ranges from the most common to the rarest. They also support biological and pharmacokinetic studies.
The team has recently grown to accommodate an increase in clinical studies, and is made up of:
- Senior clinical research nurse – Emma Charnock
- Clinical research nurses – Emma Howarth, Laura Kusyk, Michelle Bullock
- Clinical trial co-ordinators – Lynn Whitehead, Marie Reeves, Nic Seymour
- Clinical trials assistant – Louise Chadwick
From October the team will also welcome a Clinical Nurse Specialist in Research, Kelly Watts. Clinical nurse specialists have specialist skills, knowledge and experience in a particular area of nursing.
Studies
The team currently has 36 ongoing studies, including a number of phase I studies. These include:
- The EXH study, led by Dr Makin is for patients with a type of cancer called sarcoma which originates in the tissues of a person that have relapsed or have refractory disease when over conventional treatment has failed.
- The Amelia study, a first in human gene therapy treatment study. This study is progressing well, with one patient recently reaching a six month of being disease free, as a result of receiving the genetically modified T cell therapy.
- The Rhabdomyosarcoma trial led by Professor Brennan. This trial has recently shown the benefit of the patient’s long term survival with the introduction of maintenance therapy.
Performance
The research team are very proactive in recruiting all eligible patients and have a very low number of screening failure patients. The research nursing team remain one of the highest recruiters to pharmacokinetic studies in the UK.
The team recently met the recruitment target for an innovation CAR-T therapy study, which you can read more about in our news section.
Training
Due to the growth in CAR-T studies, Emma Charnock and Michelle Bullock have developed a new teaching programme and have been educating ward staff on CAR-T cell therapy. This has been a great success and feedback from nursing staff has highlighted the benefit they’ve received from these sessions and have expressed interest in further teaching sessions on the other studies being run.
