Dr Newbold of the Royal Marsden Cancer Hospital cared for Giovanni and has been working on three projects which look into the early stage thyroid cancer, advanced thyroid cancer and paediatric thyroid cancer. The main project is that of circulating tumour DNA in advanced thyroid
cancer. This is a big study involving many centres around the UK who will send in serial blood samples from patients on drug treatment for advanced thyroid cancer.

Kate Newbold says “We are building on our initial data which suggests that identifying the tumour DNA in the circulating blood via a simple blood test taken at the same time as routine bloods, will help us to get a more accurate and timely indication of whether the drug is working. This would effectively allow us to tailor the treatment to the patient more effectively. The technology would involve next generation sequencing (NGS) to identify mutations in the tumour DNA which can then be identified in the blood reflecting the volume and activity of the cancer.”