An international research group including Baylor College of Medicine has received a Catalyst Award to investigate ways of bringing new and improved cancer diagnostic tests to primary care practitioners. Called CanTest, the project is funded by Cancer Research UK.

Baylor’s Dr. Hardeep Singh is a co–investigator and senior faculty of CanTest, which aims to improve and develop new ways of diagnosing cancer in primary care. It will assess the accuracy, cost effectiveness and suitability of a range of diagnostic methods and tools for both patients and primary care practitioners as a way to improve diagnosis and reduce wait times for diagnostic evaluation. The goal is to get the right patient tested with the right test at the right time in the right setting, according to Singh.

“The CanTest collaborative aims to transform the primary care practitioner’s office to a hub of diagnostic excellence for patients who may have undiagnosed cancer or are at higher risk of cancer. Any new paradigm shift here will need to address both cognitive and health system factors that influence decision–making about diagnostic testing, and this is where we come in. Our Houston team’s multidisciplinary research on understanding the diagnostic process and reducing missed diagnostic opportunities will be foundational for achieving CanTest goals,” said Singh, chief of the Health Policy, Quality and Informatics Program at the Houston VA Center for Innovations in Quality, Effectiveness and Safety at the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center and associate professor of medicine at Baylor. His team is internationally known for studying how to improve the diagnostic process and how to use health information technology to improve communication, coordination and follow–up of diagnostic test results.

CanTest will involve researchers based at a number of international institutions in the U.S. and U.K. as well as in Australia and Denmark. In addition to primary care practitioners, the researchers will collaborate with scientists from multiple disciplines who are looking at diagnostic tests.

CanTest also will help build a community of scientists and clinicians for diagnosis related research in cancer. To build the research community, CanTest will establish an International School for Cancer Detection Research in Primary Care, which will train and support a new generation of scientists seeking to make the leap into this field.

This multimillion dollar funding is part of Cancer Research UK’s Catalyst Award that helps researchers from around the world deliver trailblazing progress in their field with long–lasting results. The results from this project are expected to influence policy and practice to support early cancer detection and improve cancer diagnosis and patient outcomes.

“This collaboration will help us discover new and more effective ways to diagnose cancer by applying different methods to general practitioner surgeries and finding out what really works for them on the job,” said Sir Harpal Kumar, Cancer Research UK’s chief executive. “By investing in future experts in this field, it will allow us to continue searching for the best way to diagnose cancer patients for many years to come. This has potential not only to save GPs’ and patients’ time, but also to reduce the anxiety patients feel when waiting for their results.”