Research Involvement Network opportunity: Help a research team disseminate their work into pancreatic cancer risk prediction by reviewing the plain-English summary
A team at the University of Oxford were awarded a Pancreatic Cancer UK Research Innovation Fund and a Cancer Research UK award to investigate the link between pancreatic cancer, diabetes and other risk factors that could help GPs refer patients for scans earlier. From their work, they have produced two papers which they would now like to spread the word about. One of the ways they will do this is by writing a plain-English summary that they can publish on the QResearch website, as well as making publicly available. The team have drafted summaries for the two studies below and would like members of the Research Involvement Network to review them to ensure they are clear and easily understandable to a wide audience.
Study 1: Time-varying nature of clinical risk factors for pancreatic cancer may aid earlier diagnosis (OX115)
In this study, the team looked at how pancreatic cancer risk factors vary over time leading up to a pancreatic cancer diagnosis. Using the QResearch population-level electronic healthcare database, the body mass index (BMI), blood-based markers, health conditions and medication use of 28,137 people before their pancreatic cancer diagnosis were compared against these same factors in 261,219 controls with no pancreatic cancer.
The results of the study are summarised in the lay summary that the team would like you to review. The full scientific publication is available here.
Study 2: Development of a risk model (QPancreasD) to predict pancreatic cancer in individuals with new-onset diabetes (OX153)
In this study, the team utilised the work from the first study which identified certain risk factors and symptoms that might suggest the presence of pancreatic cancer up to 3 years before diagnosis. The team developed a risk prediction model using these factors to predict an individual’s risk of developing pancreatic cancer 2 years after type-2 diabetes diagnosis. They then evaluated the model on how well it can identify pancreatic cancer cases.
The results of the study are summarised in the lay summary that the team would like you to review. This work has not yet been published, but will be submitted for publication.
Next steps
If you would like to review either one or both of these summaries, please email the Research Team (research@pancreaticcancer.org.uk) with the involvement reference ‘Oxford risk prediction review’ and which of the studies you would like to review. We will then send you the summaries to review along with some questions that the team would like you to consider. Reviews should be sent to the Research Team by 12th August.