A countrywide cancer study headed by King’s College London (KCL) will explore cancer research inequality.
The initiative, DISCOVER, will be led by KCL and Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust. The University of Glasgow and University of Nottingham will also participate.
DISCOVER will consist of several studies that investigate how cancer outcomes vary across ethnic groups, ancestries and socioeconomic backgrounds in the UK, and why these variations exist. They plan to recruit 14,000 participants from diverse backgrounds and geographical locations.
The studies will integrate clinical, lifestyle and molecular data regarding breast, pancreatic and prostate cancers. The platform hopes to create one of the widest resources for highlighting and addressing cancer inequalities.
One of the first patients to be recruited is Dr Denise Ejoh. She is mixed-race British-Nigerian and was diagnosed with stage IV breast cancer exactly ten years before she joined the study. Dr Ejoh mentioned that she is taking part, “so that no one’s chances of surviving cancer are determined by where they live or the resources available to them”.
Dr Ejoh founded the Cormode Cancer Foundation. Its objective is to improve cancer awareness and early detection in Nigerian communities. By providing accurate information and the proper resources to make informed decisions about their health, thousands across Nigeria have been helped by the work the foundation has done.
“I want my experience to do more than tell a story. I want it to contribute to research, inform solutions, and help reduce inequalities, so that no one’s chances of surviving cancer are determined by where they live or the resources available to them.”
Dr Denise Ejoh, Founder of the Cormode Cancer Foundation
There is documented evidence of differences in cancer incidence, tumour characteristics and treatment effectiveness amongst different population groups. However, King’s mentions that the underlying causes remain poorly understood.
Black Caribbean and African women have almost double the chance of being diagnosed with late-stage, high-grade breast cancer, when compared to white women. Statistics show that one in four black men will develop prostate cancer, in comparison to one in eight men overall. Also, evidence implies that Black patients, and patients from more deprived areas, have a higher chance of developing pancreatic cancer.
The first DISCOVER study will support SAMBAI, an international research initiative conducted across the UK, the USA and South Africa.
Its objective is to understand the factors – and the interactions between them – that influence cancer risk and outcomes in underserved populations of African descent. These factors include ancestry, lived experience and environmental exposure.
“What we ultimately want to understand is why patients who develop what appears to be the same cancer can experience very different disease and outcomes. To answer that properly, we need to look beyond any one factor and bring together tumour biology, ancestry, environment and lived experience. DISCOVER gives us a national platform to do that at scale, while SAMBAI allows us to ask these questions across populations of African descent internationally. Our hope is that understanding what drives these differences will ultimately allow us to develop better approaches to prevention, diagnosis and treatment for everyone.”
Chief Investigator Professor Sheeba Irshad, Professor of Cancer Immunology at King’s College London and Consultant Medical Oncologist at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust
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