The partnership between The Royal Marsden and GOSH, supported by the infrastructure and educational resources of the GLH, have developed a new genetic testing panel and service pathway which has improved the timelines and accuracy of diagnoses for these children, delivering comprehensive genetic information in just 14 days.
The innovative, high tech testing panels provide more genetic information than ever before to help doctors make more targeted clinical management decisions for their patients with blood cancer. For some children, these panels have provided genetic diagnoses for previously undefined cancers or redefined their diagnoses, offered treatment changes that avoid severe side effects and impacted stem cell donor selection and family testing for a predisposition to cancer.
Dr Jack Bartram, consultant paediatric haematologist at GOSH said “We work to provide the best possible care for children with blood cancer, and this collaboration has truly changed the expectations of what can be offered through cancer genomic testing. We are proud that GOSH and The Royal Marsden are bringing the benefits of genomic research to children in real-world, NHS Services.”
The collaboration brought together the scientific, clinical and research expertise of The Royal Marsden, GOSH and the GLH. The organisations are now working to support other teams around the country to bring this innovation to more patients, and hope this collaboration can provide a road-map for applying genomic techniques for the management of childhood cancer and beyond.
“The development of the panels and the new service was only possible because of the work of a huge number of multi-disciplinary teams from across the NHS Trusts. Researchers, haematologists, clinical scientists, clinical genetics teams, IT and operational staff came together to help improve diagnosis and treatment in paediatric haemato-oncology.” Said Professor Michael Hubank, Head of Clinical Genomics (Research) at The Royal Marsden and Scientific Director of North Thames GLH.
Professor Rachel Butler, Chief Operating Officer of the North Thames GLH added “We are really pleased that this work has been recognised by the HSJ awards. We hope that being shortlisted for this award will help to further share our success and learnings so that more patients can benefit from the state-of-the-art techniques being developed within the NHS Genomic Medicine Service.”
