Professor Chris Fox – How Clinical Trials Are Changing Lives
In the latest episode of Cure Leukaemia’s Let’s Talk Blood Cancer: The Patients Podcast, host Adam Joyce sits down with Chris Fox, a Professor of Haematology at the University of Nottingham Hospital, who specialises in Lymphoma.
Why Haematology?
From a young age, Professor Fox said he always enjoyed science and talking to people. So, medicine became the perfect career choice.
After studying medicine in Leicester, and completing his rotation in each department, Professor Fox discovered his passion for haematology. As it combines science and patient care, “what I really enjoy is the connection between the laboratory science and looking after patients”.
In recent years, there has become more of an expectation within the medical profession to specialise in a certain area. After finding his feet in Haematology, Professor Fox then turned his efforts to Lymphoma.
How do Lymphoma and Leukaemia differ?
As with Leukaemia, Lymphoma is not just one type of disease, there are over 50 types, each with its own gene mutation. However, Lymphoma often presents itself as lumps or swellings that can develop anywhere in the body.
Unlike leukaemia, which is found in the blood, lymphoma usually affects the lymphatic system.
Patient Care and Research
Within his role as a Professor Fox enjoys the even split between research and patient care. When looking at a typical working week, Professor Fox spends around 3 days with his patients, this would be on the Haematology ward or visiting in-patients recovering from treatment.
For Professor Fox, a key part of his role is ensuring his patient’s understand the clinical trial they are being offered, and how this route would compare to traditional treatment.
The rest of Professor Fox’s week is spent focusing on designing and researching clinical trials. This can range from conferences with pharmaceutical companies to looking at data collected from clinical trials. All to ensure the best standard of treatment can be delivered to patients.
Why are trials so important?
“They develop our understanding of the disease”, the use of trials helps to show the platform science has provided to establish new treatments, these new drugs are something we hadn’t thought would be possible 10 years ago.
The only way new drugs can be established within standard NHS practice, is to have clinical trials to prove that they are safe and effective to help patients battling Lymphoma.
The Trials Acceleration Programme
Professor Fox is the Medical Director of the Trials Acceleration Programme (TAP). The TAP was initiated as a result of the lack of coordination between different Haematology centre’s and their implementation of clinical trials.
As a result of the TAP, there are now 15 centralised centres that can open the same clinical trial in a much more coordinated way – leading to greater recruitment of trials and early trial activity.
These trials are now able to operate in a more streamline way due to the addition of funded research nurses and pharmacists who collect data from patients on clinical trials. For Professor Fox, without having the teams of research nurses, data clerks, and pharmacists, many patients would miss out on opportunities to try new treatments.
The TAP has already enabled thousands of patients to join ground-breaking studies, and has cut the average trial set-up time from around 30 months to less than a year. The hope for the TAP is that soon “everyone diagnosed with a blood cancer can be offered the chance to take part in a trial”.
Advances in Lymphoma
Having specialised in Lymphoma for a number of years, Professor Fox has witnessed a number of big advances, which may not have been thought possible even 10 years ago.
One of the biggest advances in Lymphoma treatment has been immunotherapy, which helps the body’s immune system attack cancer cells.
Professor Fox highlighted two different types of immunotherapy; CAR-T cell therapy, where a patient’s immune cells are changed in a laboratory so they can better recognise and destroy cancer. He also pointed to newer drugs called bispecific antibodies, which help immune cells find and attack cancer cells more easily.
“These treatments have had the biggest impact over the last five years.”
Looking ahead, Professor Fox believes the future of lymphoma treatment is promising, “Witnessing the progress is very heart-warming. I know that progress won’t stop in the next 10 years.”