A University of Liverpool and Clatterbridge team has secured £97,771 from North West Cancer Research to find out if blood cancer – which includes leukaemia, myeloma and lymphoma – is a bigger problem for people living in the North West of England compared to other areas of the country.
Blood cancer is one of the most common cancers in the UK and affects people at any age. People with blood cancer from deprived communities, which are over-represented in the North West, tend to fare worse than people living in affluent areas. Because of this, blood cancer could be a particular problem for the region and the new research will look into this.
The study, which is sponsored by The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre (CCC), will use NHS data from all patients with blood cancer diagnosed in England since 2014. The data has already been collected and is being used in a research project called UnCOVer (Understanding the impact of COVID-19 in blood cancer).
Dr Indrani Karpha, a Clinical Research Fellow at CCC, will lead a multidisciplinary team that brings together experts in blood cancer, health data science and economic modelling, with project management and research governance provided by CCC’s Research Governance Facilitator, Brogan Johnston. The research team includes Professors Andy Pettitt and Nagesh Kalakonda from the University’s Institute of Systems, Molecular & Integrative Biology and CCC consultants together with a team of data analysts at the University of Liverpool led by Professor Catrin Tudur Smith.
Speaking at the start of Blood Cancer Awareness Month, Dr Karpha said: “We are really pleased to have been awarded this funding to understand how blood cancer affects people in the North West. We think, but can’t be sure, that our region’s higher-than-average levels of deprivation will have a knock-on effect on blood cancer outcomes, and our study aims to find this out.
“The project will compare blood cancer outcomes in North West England with those in the rest of the country. We will also look for disparities in outcome linked to deprivation and ethnicity and try to understand the underlying causes for any disparities we find.
“We have anonymised information on more than 300,000 patients with blood cancer, making it the largest amount of cancer data ever released by the NHS for a single research project.
“The project will show how worthy of future investment and funding the North West might be compared to the rest of the country, and where funding would be best targeted to improve blood cancer outcomes.”
Alastair Richards, CEO of North West Cancer Research, said: “We know that blood cancer is one of the most common cancers in the UK, and the most common cancer in children. On top of that here in the North West we are 25% more likely to develop cancer than the rest of the country.
“Investigations into why our region’s cancer rates are higher than average are vital and so we are pleased to be able to fund Dr Karpha and her team to further the research into blood cancer incidences in our region and in turn continue to tackle the health inequalities we experience in our communities.”