Cancer Innovation Challenge

What changed

Patient reported data

New approaches and tools to record and integrate patient reported data into routine cancer care.

In the patient reported data workstream, five projects were awarded Phase 1 funding (feasibility study) and two received Phase 2 funding for further development and evaluation in pilot NHS Scotland Health Boards:

1) OWise for Scotland mobile app (piloted with NHS Lothian)

OWise for Scotland is a mobile app developed by PxHealthcare that lets breast cancer patients track the side effects of their treatment. As a result of its development as part of the Cancer Innovation Challenge:

  • OWise for Scotland is now integrated into TrakCare at NHS Lothian, for breast cancer patients
  • The app is being rolled out across Maggies Centres in UK
  • The OWise app has been developed for prostate cancer patients
  • PxHealthcare opened an office in Scotland, and is expanding to the US market

2) My Clinical Outcomes (MCO) web-based tool (piloted with NHS Ayrshire & Arran)

My Clinical Outcomes is a web-based solution originally developed for orthopaedics and through the CIC customised for patients with blood cancer in NHS Ayrshire & Arran, to carry out pre-treatment assessments. This enabled patients to record their symptoms in real time from their homes.

As a result of its development as part of the Cancer Innovation Challenge:

  • MCO is now in routine long-term use in NHS Ayrshire & Arran haematology cancer service, supporting the care of patients on chemotherapy.
  • This work won the Industry Collaboration Award at the Digital Healthcare Awards 2020, for ‘Using Digital Patient-reported Outcomes to Enhance Routine Cancer Care’.

Following the success of the initial phase, MCO has gone on to receive funding to:

  • Work with breast oncologists at The Beatson West of Scotland Cancer Centre to develop an acute and follow-up PROMs pathway for secondary breast cancer patients.
  • Deploy a solution for gynaecological cancer patients from across the West of Scotland Cancer Network undergoing surgery at NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde.
  • Deploy a solution to capture and track quality of life data on patients being treated by any of six clinical teams with a different tumour focus and from across the four health boards of the South East Scotland Cancer Network (SCAN).
  • Collaborate with the National Digital Platform team on a potential strategy for scaling similar innovations nationally in the future.

Data science solutions

Innovative data science solutions to improve cancer care and outcomes.

In the data science solutions workstream, three projects received Phase 1 (feasibility study) funding and one received Phase 2 funding for further development and evaluation in pilot NHS Health Boards:

Canon Medical Research Europe - Automatic RECIST reporting in Mesothelioma using Deep Learning AI (piloted with NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde)

Canon Medical Research Europe developed a deep learning based method to automate assessment of Malignant Pleural Mesothelioma using CT scans.

RECIST (Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumours) is a scoring system applied to CT scans to describe a patient’s response to cancer treatment, and is the gold standard measurement used in clinical trials. However, RECIST is time-consuming and results often vary between reporting radiologists. A shortage of NHS radiologists also means RECIST is not routinely used in NHS care. The aim was to develop an automatic RECIST using Artificial Intelligence (AI), improving the quality and reducing the cost of assessment of response to treatment.

As a result of its development as part of the Cancer Innovation Challenge:

  • The pilot work developed the world’s first fully automated system for measuring the volume, and ultimately the volumetric change, of Malignant Pleural Mesothelioma (MPM) tumours from CT images. Implementing this solution would allow tumour progression to be assessed rapidly to support clinical decision making.
  • The CIC award was a major stepping stone in achieving a £5m International Accelerator Award from Cancer Research UK http://www.glasgowcancer.org/research/our-teams/predict-meso/
  • Technical publication.

Impact Stories

The ways in which IHDP’s approach and activities contributed to improved outcomes and impact are shown through impact stories.

The IHDP Approach