A NEW FRONTIER IN SURGERY

Consultant hepatobiliary and pancreatic surgeon Mr Keith Roberts explains how a groundbreaking, new fast track to surgery trialled at University Hospitals Birmingham offers hope of more successful treatment…

“Pancreatic cancer moves quickly so must be treated fast. But surgery is often delayed, largely because many patients have jaundice, which is usually treated first, a step that costs valuable time during which many cancers progress to the point where they are inoperable.

However, the new thinking is that you don’t need to treat jaundice first but can operate straightaway. In the trial, we cut the average time from diagnosis to surgery from 65 days to just 16 days. The result is that 97% of patients who were eligible for surgery could be successfully treated, compared with the current average of 75%. “If this new pathway were rolled out nationally, hundreds of patients would be successfully treated.

The new fast track also saves the NHS £3,200 per patient that could be spent on specialist nurses who could make the journey to surgery even quicker.”

The trial carried out at University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust was part funded with a £50,000 grant from Pancreatic Cancer UK.