The Ratcliff Interventional Oncology Fellowships
The Ratcliff Interventional Oncology Fellowship was first conceived in 2005/6 and following a period of active fundraising the first fellows were appointed towards the end of 2006.
Our very first fellow, Dr Simon Smith, is an established consultant at Ipswich General Hospital. Dr Smith had already acquired some funding and some equipment and the local oncology community were keen to have an ablation service. The aim of the fellowship was to provide the necessary knowledge and experience such that he could establish his own Ablation Service in Ipswich. As an established practitioner Dr Smith already had excellent needle placement skills but needed to learn about ablation. Over a period of 3 months he performed over 40 treatments. He has now returned to Ipswich and is in the process of establishing a local ablation service.
The second Ratcliff Interventional Oncology fellow, Dr Mark Anderson, is a research registrar from Oxford. Dr Andersons’ main area of interest lies in colorectal cancer. Over a period of three months he learnt the “ins and outs” of ablation in the liver, lung and kidney, again performing several supervised procedures. Dr Anderson also carried out an analysis of the changing CT appearances that occur during lung ablation and showed that CT is excellent in predicting ablation efficacy. It is planned to present this work at scientific meetings and, in due course, it will be published. Dr Anderson now returns to Oxford where it is hoped to establish a regular weekly ablation treatment session.
Our current fellow is Dr Jeremy Taylor, a final year trainee from St George's Hospital. Dr Taylor has a long established interest in interventional oncology with a particular interest in liver tumours and liver ablation. He will spend three months at UCH learning the necessary skills to perform tumour ablation.
Looking forward to 2008, the adverts for the Ratcliff Interventional Oncology Fellowships have just been distributed. We have already received expressions of interest.
RFA Team Raise over £12,500
The RFA team, 11 in number, headed by Founder Jean Ratcliff and Dr Alice Gillams have raised over £12,500 as a result of the generous support of many friends and colleagues of their team's efforts in the recent 5 kms event in Hyde Park on Sunday September 16th in which over 20,000 women took part. Jean's daughter Carrie walked in 5 inch high wedges accompanied by nurses from the Harley Street Clinic and also the hugely supportive actress Lorraine Chase.
It was a fun day. The sun shone but the glow for us was to know that we had such support and had raised a significant sum for our work in bringing greater awareness and availability of the vital procedure of radiofrequency ablation.
We thank all our generous sponsors especially on behalf of those who will ultimately benefit.
Variety Club of Great Britain
The famous children's charity, The Variety Club of Great Britain, has generously donated £3000 in support of our work with The Teenage Cancer Trust based at UCH. The doctors who are awarded the Ratcliff Interventional Oncology Fellowship train at UCH under the guidance of Professor Bill Lees and Dr. Alice Gillams, world leaders in radiofrequency ablation. A huge thank you to all the Variety Club dedicated fundraisers who work tirelessly to help and support young people with special needs.
The Middlesex Lung RFA Course
On Thursday, July 5th 2007, a one day course on “lung RFA” was held at the new University College Hospital in London. The course is officially named after The Middlesex Hospital where much of the pioneering work in tumour ablation was performed in the years before The Middlesex moved to UCH in 2005.
The one day symposium included lectures on the principles behind RFA, the technical details, how to assess a patients’ suitability, how to perform the procedure, and how to assess the efficacy of treatment. A sample treatment was carried out by Prof Lees and transmitted by live video feed to the adjacent conference room so that participants could experience for themselves how a typical lung ablation is performed.
In addition there were lecture sessions covering the main tumour types that are treated with RFA. Speakers included world leaders from surgery, oncology, radiotherapy and chest medicine each contributing the relevant knowledge from their own discipline. Interventional oncology lectures were provided by Dr Gillams from UCH and Dr Warner Prevoo from the Netherlands.
The course attracted practitioners and potential practitioners from across the UK, Europe and as far a field as the USA.
Building on the success of this one day symposium, we intend to hold further courses on liver and lung RFA in 2008/9.
The Hydro Active Women’s Challenge
On September 16th several supporters of The Cancer Thermal Ablation Fund will be gathering in London’s Hyde Park to participate in this 5 Km run/jog/walk to raise the vital funds needed to provide training for doctors in this important fourth dimension in the fight against cancer.
Leading expert in this specialist procedure, Dr Alice Gillams will be joining Founder Jean Ratcliff and the rest of the team which includes celebrities Wendy Richard and Lorraine Chase subject to their professional engagements. Many of the nurses from the scanning unit are also taking part.
If you would like to sponsor the team or take part then please contact Jean Ratcliff on info@rfablation.co.uk
First Doctor awarded The Ratcliff Interventional Oncology Fellowship
Dr Simon Smith MRCP (UK) FRCR was awarded the first Ratcliff Interventional Oncology Fellowship and commenced training at UCH in February. Dr Smith is Consultant Radiologist at The Ipswich Hospital. Dr Smith writes:
Last week I completed my three month attachment at University College London under the tuition of Dr Alice Gillams and Prof W Lees. Not even the vagaries of the railway system and frustration of the daily commute from my home in the wilds of East Anglia could detract from the value of this experience.
Being the first recipient of the Ratcliff interventional Oncology Fellowship, my intention was to see and perhaps do some radiofrequency ablation cases. In the end, largely because of the high patient throughput at this specialist unit, I was able to treat over forty tumours in a variety of locations, all of course done under the watchful eye of my mentors. However, the attachment was not simply about performing the technique. Much of the skill in running such a service comes in the selection of patients and in their subsequent follow up. I therefore attended weekly multidisciplinary meetings and follow up clinics and took part in the review of patients who had been referred in to UCL for an expert opinion.
I have been a consultant radiologist for seven years and with the day-to-day demands of working in the National Health Service it is easy to let important developments such as RFA pass you by. The Ratliff Fellowship, together with the support of my colleagues back home in Ipswich, has allowed me develop a new skill which I’m sure will be of great benefit to our local patients who until now had to travel a considerable distance for ablation treatments.
All in all the three months has proved to be of immeasurable value and has left me well prepared to establish my own service back in Ipswich. Indeed given the intricacies of the procedure, I wonder how it is possible to establish an RF service without such an attachment.
Ablation of Lung Tumours
This is a growing area in ablation with increasing numbers of patients being referred. Our group, based at UCLH, is now performing as many as 40 treatments/year, all for patients with inoperable lung tumours. We have the largest experience in the UK and worldwide there are more than 12 other centres performing lung ablation.
The National Institute of Clinical Excellence “NICE” recently looked at the published literature on RFA in lung tumours and decided that the safety profile was well studied and was acceptable. They asked for additional research into the role of RFA relative to conventional therapies such as surgery and radiotherapy. Whilst this research is on-going “NICE” has approved RFA for inoperable lung tumours within the context of audit and research. Given the limitations of existing therapies and the known effectiveness of RFA in tumours generally, I would anticipate a major role for RFA in the treatment of small primary and secondary lung tumours.
Cancer patient Jean Ratcliff has recently undergone RFA to a small tumour in her right lung. Jean says “this procedure only required an overnight stay in hospital and the recovery time was reasonably quick and I am now feeling fine”.
Dr Alice Gillams MRCP FRCR ABR
Senior Lecturer, Medical Imaging, University College London
Landmark Dinner Raises £25,000
Actor Graham Cole, famous for his role in 'The Bill', conducted an amusing and succesful auction in the intimate surroundings of the Drawing Room at London's Landmark Hotel on September 14th where 125 guests gathered to enjoy a sumptious dinner and to enjoy an interesting talk by Phillip Birkenstein on the St Petersburg famous Faberge collection. Together with a raffle which was also generously supported over £25,000 was raised for The Cancer Thermal Ablation Fund .
Stone Hardy Supports The Cancer Thermal Ablation Fund
Northampton based national tail lift servicing company, Stone Hardy, have adopted The Cancer Thermal Ablation Fund for this year's staff charity campaign. Monies to be raised will include their weekly mufti- day contributions.
Fundraising Climbing
Following the succesful Landmark Dinner funds raised to date are now well over £80,000
