The research program at the RAH Colorectal Research Group has three main stems which cover major areas in colorectal patient care: Post-operative recovery, colorectal surgical oncology, and inflammatory bowel disease. Current and recent research activity is summarised below:
Diverticulitis
DAMASCUS (Diverticular Abscess Management: A Snapshot Collaborative aUdit Study) is an international, prospective study aiming to investigate the variations in the management of patients with diverticular abscess and whether these variations are associated with short term clinical outcomes at 30 days or with readmission or re-intervention rates over the subsequent 6 months.
Protocol here: www.acpgbi.org.uk/news/damascus-study-in-the-uk/
COVID-19
Post-operative Recovery
Colorectal Surgical Oncology
Diverticulitis
DAMASCUS (Diverticular Abscess Management: A Snapshot Collaborative aUdit Study) is an international, prospective study aiming to investigate the variations in the management of patients with diverticular abscess and whether these variations are associated with short term clinical outcomes at 30 days or with readmission or re-intervention rates over the subsequent 6 months.
Protocol here: www.acpgbi.org.uk/news/damascus-study-in-the-uk/
COVID-19
- CovidSurg: an international cohort study, aiming to assess the outcomes of surgery in patients diagnosed in COVID-19
- CovidSurg-Cancer: an international cohort study assessing the safety of surgery for all types of cancer during the COVID-19 pandemic and the impact of the pandemic in cancer delay and treatment pathways. https://globalsurg.org/covidsurg/
Post-operative Recovery
- SUNRRISE Trial Single Use Negative pRessure dressing for Reduction In Surgical site infection following Emergency laparotomy. This is a randomised controlled trial being run nationally and internationally, and likely to begin recruiting late 2019. Protocol here: www.birmingham.ac.uk/research/activity/mds/trials/bctu/trials/coloproctology/SUNRRISE/index.aspx
Colorectal Surgical Oncology
- mASCARA: Multinational Anal Squamous Cell Carcinoma: Registry and Audit. Longitudinal registry study looking to collect international data on anal SCC or high-grade AIN patients.
- Artificial intelligence and deep learning to more accurately diagnose positive lymph node disease on pre-operative imaging in colorectal cancer (data collection phase).
- TNT prospective study of Total Neoadjuvant Therapy in locally advanced and stage IV rectal cancer (ethics submission phase).
- RENO: Prospective Study of ‘Watch and Wait’ Strategy in Patients with Rectal Cancer who have Developed a Clinical Complete Response with concurrent Chemo‐radiotherapy: RENO trial (REctal cancer No Operation).
Protocol here: https://gicancer.org.au/clinical-trial/reno/#health-professionals - REACCT collaborative: Research in Early Age Colorectal Cancer Trends. Data collected and submitted to the first study. Details here: twitter.com/REACCTcollab
- Impact of lateral pelvic lymph nodes on outcome after neoadjuvant chemoradiation for rectal cancer. A systematic review has been completed and is the writeup phase. We have looked at RAH data which demonstrates that patients with lateral node disease have a significantly higher rate of local recurrence, despite being treated with chemoradiation. We are now in the final stages of leading and completing an international case:control study looking at whether surgical resection of these nodes after chemoradiation affects outcome (this includes our patients, and those form major centres in the Netherlands and the USA).