Pancreatic Cancer

Debate between Eric Ollerenshaw and Naomi Long

Monday 8th September 2014 Westminster Hall

[Eric Ollerenshaw]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for underlining that critical point about survival rates and their impact on the ability of researchers to get that much-needed research.

The consensus we found was that more work is needed and that one of the reasons why survival rates for other cancers are increasing is that effective screening and markers have been developed to allow early diagnosis, thus giving more time for curative treatments to be given to patients. The other side of the argument, which we will go into, is that what we are looking for is support and treatment to allow survival rates after diagnosis to increase. In this day and age, having only six weeks left in which to make life-shattering decisions is unbelievably difficult for people.

[Naomi Long (Belfast East) (Alliance)]

I am glad that we are able to have this important debate. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, in addition to the need for primary research, there is a disparity between the UK one-year survival rates and the best survival rates in Europe—it is often as much as 11%? Things are known about pancreatic cancer that we can perhaps learn from to treat and diagnose the condition.

[Eric Ollerenshaw]

The hon. Lady makes an extremely important point, which the all-party group was trying to weigh up. The hon. Member for Scunthorpe made an important point about CT scans and made the important suggestion that there should be pilots. Also, interestingly, he mentioned that the going backwards and forwards between the GP and the specialists delayed diagnosis. There are certainly things that we could learn from other countries.

One of the basic needs that came up from our research was the need for investment in the basic science and biology of tumours, as well as access to better infrastructure that would allow that, such as access to tissue samples. On the latter point, the Pancreatic Cancer Research Fund told the APPG that it was working in conjunction with Barts on creating a specific pancreatic cancer tissue bank, which would help. That is a massive investment for a small charity and it should be applauded.

As Members know, there is a massive shift throughout all cancer research towards personalised medicine. Pancreatic cancer patients could benefit particularly from such an approach, given the nature of the disease and the fact that so many different tumour types are involved. New treatments need to be developed to attack and destroy the cancer cells. That does not mean new drugs alone, but perfecting the use of advanced radiotherapy techniques, such as NanoKnife or CyberKnife, for the benefit of patients and to the satisfaction of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, so that they can be provided on the NHS.

All in all, a lot of research needs funding. A key statistic for this debate, as mentioned in Maggie’s e-petition, is that pancreatic cancer receives only 1% of the National Cancer Research Institute’s site-specific spend of £5.2 million a year. That is despite the fact that pancreatic cancer is the fifth biggest cancer killer in the UK, and predicted to become the fourth biggest by 2030. It is responsible for 5.2% of all cancer deaths in the UK. The National Cancer Research Institute itself acknowledges that research into pancreatic cancer and other cancers deemed to have unmet need, such as brain and oesophageal cancers—forgive me if I do not pronounce that correctly—remains “relatively low”.

By “relatively low”, however, the institute means “low”. I contend that £5.2 million a year from the NCRI partner funders is simply not enough to tackle the extreme intransigence of a disease as tough as pancreatic cancer, a disease that has seen—as has been mentioned before and should be mentioned again and again—little change in survival rates over the past 40 years or by comparison with other countries, as the hon. Member for Belfast East (Naomi Long) said.

Why does funding matter? Is money the be-all and end-all? No—other things need to be done as well if research into pancreatic cancer is to become more effective. However, if we look at other cancer types, we see that sharp increases in survival rates from breast, prostate and bowel cancer, for example, have mirrored sharp increases in research spending into those diseases. As Professor Peter O’Hare, chair of Pancreatic Cancer UK’s scientific advisory board—now there’s a powerful job—told the APPG inquiry:

“I think if you simply looked at the history of science, I don’t think you can, as a scientist, start to make guarantees about research. It’s not like a sausage grinder; you don’t put research in and it comes out and you solve the problem. It just doesn’t work that way”—

we totally understand and agree with that—

“there are convoluted pathways and you can’t make guarantees.

However, I think there is a guarantee you can make: if you don’t carry out research, you are not going to move; nothing is going to happen. That’s the guarantee that you could make.”

Some evidence suggests a critical mass, a level at which research needs to be funded, if advances are to start to gather pace. Pancreatic Cancer UK produced a report in 2012, “A Study for Survival”, which demonstrated a level—around £10 million to £12 million minimum—at which the amount of research starts to become sustainable and from which new research proposals and ideas are generated. Those new ideas in turn lead to more funding coming in, and we get a virtuous circle.

We are some way off that level of funding at the moment. National Cancer Research Institute funding partners contribute just £5.2 million at present. Incidentally, we learned during the all-party parliamentary group’s research inquiry that the Department of Health’s contribution to that sum is just £700,000 a year. Although they are growing, charities for pancreatic cancer are still small and supply probably less than £2 million a year between them for research. Where, then, can that extra funding come from? What needs to be done?

In its new research strategy, published in April this year, Cancer Research UK made a welcome move in the right direction, with a promise to increase funding into pancreatic and other cancers of unmet need—brain, lung and oesophageal—twofold or threefold over the next few years. That is great news.