Changes to cancer surgery could save 5,000 lives a year

The study by specialists at Leeds University’s School of Medicine concludes changes by surgeons operating on patients with bowel cancer could significantly increase survival rates.

Every year around 41,000 people are diagnosed with the condition, making it the fourth most common form of the disease, and it claims the lives of around 16,000.

Doctors in Leeds have led efforts to improve techniques to reduce recurrence of the illness by examining different approaches used by surgeons.

Now they have examined surgery on patients with the condition from two UK centres, one in Germany, one in Japan and six in Denmark, concluding survival rates could be significantly improved in the UK if approaches used in Germany and Japan are adopted in the UK.

Consultant pathologist Prof Phil Quirke said: “Surgery was found to vary widely between the centres but also within Denmark.

“The surgeons in Germany and Japan produced the best surgery as well as a unit in Denmark and a specialist hospital in London that had adopted their methods.

“We have been able to confirm that keyhole surgery can produce excellent results in the right hands.

“We have also been able to demonstrate an improvement in the surgery in Denmark with a training course.”

His team have spent the past 15 years studying photographic records of bowel cancer tumours removed in Leeds and around the world in order to compare different types of surgery and how they relate to curing bowel cancer patients.

Initial research into tumours led to two training programmes for rectal cancer surgery involving 200 NHS hospitals in England.

Following further research into tumours located in the colon, the team trialled a new training programme in Yorkshire – the first of its kind in the county.

Prof Quirke added: “Such programmes are easy to implement and cheap compared with the cost of modern chemotherapy.

“With a move towards better colon cancer surgery, around 5,000 lives could potentially be saved every year in the UK and many more worldwide.”

The latest work was funded by the charity Yorkshire Cancer Research and published in the Lancet medical journal.