Once the model has been developed, the iKnife ‘intelligent knife’ technology could hopefully give an instant yes/no result for the diagnosis of womb cancer, doing away with the current waiting time for results of at least two weeks. Getting rid of this delay will allow women with womb cancer to be put onto a treatment precious weeks earlier, and reduce anxiety inducing waits for everyone who goes for diagnostic testing.
Dr Ghaem-Maghami hopes that once the model is proven to be reliable, the technology could be used in the clinic to diagnose women with womb cancer immediately after a biopsy is taken, “Being referred for diagnostic tests for endometrial cancer is a very stressful time for any woman, being able to get rid of the agonising wait of at least two weeks will provide a huge relief for thousands of women each year. This could not only save anxiety inducing waits for the women who do not have cancer, but it will speed up the treatment pathway for those diagnosed.”
Womb cancer is the most common of the gynaecological cancers, and the fourth most common cancer in women. It affects 9,300 women every year in the UK alone. It accounts for 3% of all cancer diagnoses across the population, and the incidence is rising starkly. Even though increased age is a risk factor for the disease, a quarter of women diagnosed with womb cancer are pre-menopausal. The common misconception that this is an older women’s cancer, as well as the most common symptom of irregular bleeding being hard to measure, can often mean younger women are diagnosed at a later stage.
“It is an honour to be able to fund this research,” says CEO of The Eve Appeal, Athena Lamnisos. “We believe this research will make a huge difference to the next generation of women diagnosed with womb cancer. Speeding up the process of diagnosis for these women can mean all the difference to their treatment options and their outcomes.”
The iKnife cuts through material whilst delivering an electrical current, heating as it cuts. The machine then captures and analyses the vapour that is released with mass spectrometry, identifying the phospholipids in the tissue. Phospholipids make up the outside of all cells, including cancer cells. From testing many biopsies from women with womb cancer and many with benign growths, the iKnife’s analysis software can build up a picture of what the outside of womb cancer cells are made of. The technology can then see the phospholipids that are ‘flags’ for cancer and give an instant diagnosis.
The current pathway for patients means that women will need to wait at least six weeks for a diagnosis from the point of making their first GP appointment, even when symptoms are picked up on and the women referred immediately. From the point of biopsy, results take at least two weeks, as they currently need to be sent off to a laboratory for standard histological analysis. The iKnife technology would rid of this avoidable delay.
For many women this time between biopsy and result is an agonising few weeks, with the worry that they may have cancer causing a lot of anxiety. Being able to speed up this avoidable delay in the diagnostic pathway would enable peace of mind for the 90% of women who go for a biopsy who do not have womb cancer. For the women who aren’t so lucky it means that they can be put onto a treatment pathway weeks before the timeline from standard diagnostics, which may have an impact on the prognosis.
Rachel Haworth from London was diagnosed with womb cancer aged 30, “While I was waiting for my test results to come back it genuinely hadn’t occurred to me that I had cancer. It was a massive bolt from the blue when they came back as womb cancer – I was only 30 and it was totally unexpected.
“I was so ignorant about the symptoms that my body was showing, which is why I’d done nothing about them. The first GP I saw just said my periods had gone a bit haywire because I was stressed – which I now know is a common experience of many womb cancer sufferers who struggle to be diagnosed when their symptoms are initially dismissed. Fortunately, the second GP was great and took the time to find out what was wrong.
“This research is fantastic, because womb cancer is often so hard to detect and you have to go through so many steps and hoops to get to the point of diagnosis. This technology reduces that agonising waiting period and means if you are told the devastating news you have cancer you can get onto treatment right away. I was lucky because I was treated relatively quickly after diagnosis, which meant I could keep my ovaries and eventually become a mother to two amazing boys.”