Hospital to Develop Groundbreaking Service for Breast Cancer Patients

The Trust is developing the new service thanks to a successful to bid the NHS Technology Adoption Centre who in 2008 sought applications from NHS organisations to host Technology Implementation Projects.

University Hospital plans to develop a new Sentinel Lymph Node Biopsy diagnostic and treatment service. It is a patient focussed project designed to reduce the number of surgical procedures needed for breast cancer patients using the very latest in medical and diagnostic technology.

Mr James Adjogatse, Consultant Breast Surgeon explained: "The Trust currently runs a one stop clinic for breast cancer patients on the 2 week referral pathway. Patients in the clinic undergo a range of diagnostic tests and are discharged the same day if their results are benign or negative. This new service is an enhancement of that and is designed to improve the journey for patients whose initial diagnosis is malignant or positive and go on to have surgery.

Patients in whom the Sentinel Lymph Node is positive and would normally require a second operation to remove the remaining glands will benefit from this new technology. This ground breaking project will use new technology to test a lymph node biopsy in a specially created laboratory within the operating theatre, and the results will be known to the surgeon within half an hour, whilst the patient is in theatre and anaesthetised.

For the patient this new diagnosis and treatment pathway will bring a number of benefits; they will undergo one surgical procedure where they may have had to undergo a second, thus reducing the potential trauma to the patient, there is reduced risk of complications, reduced risk associated to the amount of time a patient has to be under anaesthetic, there will be a quicker recovery time overall and a reduced number of visits to the Outpatient department for follow up care”.

The project is now in the planning stages and it is anticipated that the hospital will begin to see the first patients using the technology in the autumn of this year.

Mr Adjogatse added: "This is ground breaking technology and we are delighted to have been selected to develop and trial a new pathway for breast cancer patients. The project will enable us to develop a less invasive and less traumatic treatment regime which is ultimately going to bring huge benefits to this group of patients, and increase our theatre capacity which will allow us to treat more patients more quickly".

Throughout the project the Trust will be working with the Technology Adoption Centre, who will be collating statistical data, best practice from all four project sites and learning outcomes around the adoption and implementation of this service.

Mr Adjogatse concluded: "By undertaking this project we can share our ideas with the other project sites and tackle some of the adoption barriers that can sometimes prevent progress and change. University Hospital is committed to improving the quality of our services for patients, and as we see new infrastructure taking shape in the form of a new state of the art hospital, we continue to look at new ways of delivering 1st class healthcare for our patients".

At the end of the project this vital information will be disseminated across the NHS to encourage the uptake of this technology elsewhere.