BATH CANCER RESEARCH UNIT

Bath Cancer Research provides consultant haematologists/ oncologists an international service for the diseases above. Cells from their patients are tested for ex vivo drug response to a panel of cytotoxic drugs (up to 25 drugs). A report is sent to the physician to aid choice of optimum therapy. This information helps maximise the likelihood of response (and therefore survival) and reduces the risk of causing patient toxicity with no clinical benefit. Some assays are chargeable.

Who are we? Bath Cancer Research is a charitably funded research group based at the Royal United Hospital in Bath. Research scientist Dr Andrew Bosanquet, who has been actively involved in the field of cancer research for more than twenty-five years, heads the team. What do we do? We aim to improve treatment for patients with leukaemia and lymphoma. Patients with the same malignancy may vary in their response to treatment, making it difficult for doctors to choose the best treatment for an individual. To tackle this problem, we test malignant cells from individual patients with a range of drugs to find each patient’s unique drug sensitivity profile. Test-sensitive drugs are four times more likely to be of benefit than test-resistant drugs. What specimens do we test? We routinely test leukaemias and lymphomas because malignant cells are readily available from blood, bone marrow or lymph nodes. We have most experience with chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL), acute myeloid leukaemia (AML), non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) and similar diseases. We no longer test solid tumours. Please visit http://weisenthal.org for other testing laboratories. What do we need for a successful test? We need live tumour cells that arrive in our laboratories as soon as possible, and preferably within 24 hours of being taken. If enough malignant cells are present we provide drug sensitivity results for over 95% of specimens. We aim to find drugs that will kill your malignant cells. Your cells might not respond to any drug tested, especially if you have a drug resistant tumour - even the best anticancer drugs do not work for all patients. Sometimes no chemotherapy, or treatment with a new drug that is effective in the test, is suggested by the test results.