Click here to view CRUK RadNet Leeds most recent peer-reviewed publications
A RadNet Leeds publication in Nature Communications of work that is influencing government policy: An international multi-centre study to develop and validate federated learning-based prognostic models for anal cancer (atomCAT)
What is atomCAT and why is it important? Anal cancer is a relatively rare cancer, which means that any one hospital only sees a limited number of patients. This can make it difficult for researchers to collect enough information to…
Yorkshire Cancer Research feature Professor Henry’s important trial on prostate cancer
Professor Ann Henry and Dr Fin Slevin are leading the POINTER-PC trial, featured by Yorkshire Cancer Research. This large trial is investigating whether a shorter course of radiotherapy can better treat prostate cancer that has returned following the initial course…
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Yorkshire Cancer Research: “Groundbreaking trial in Yorkshire offers new potential to improve radiotherapy treatment for people with rectal cancer”
Yorkshire Cancer Research feature APHRODITE, a trial that they funded which compares the standard dose of radiotherapy with a higher dose of radiotherapy for rectal cancer. The inital findings of this important trial were presented at ESTRO, where it was…
A Lifetime Achievement Award for our Director, Professor Sebag-Montefiore
CRUK RadNet Leeds Director, Professor David Sebag-Montefiore All of us at RadNet Leeds are delighted with the award of a Lifetime Achievement Award by the European Society for Radiotherapy and Oncology (ESTRO) to our Director, Professor David Sebag-Montefiore. Over 40 years, David…
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RadNet Leeds, making the news
Two of our group have been featured in the news in recent weeks. Our Director David Sebag-Monetefiore was on the BBC sofa for a piece on bowel cancer testing, and Dr Bashar Al-Qaisieh was featured on the BBC website to…
Congratulations to Stelios Theophanous and his team on the publication of the atomCAT2 paper published online in Nature Portfolio Nature Communications. This work shows how high-quality international research in rare cancers can be achieved without having to share patient-level data between research sites. In In atomCAT2, sixteen centres in nine countries developed and externally validated federated learning-based prognostic models in anal cancer, while keeping patient-level data within each centre. This means that when patient numbers are low, nationally and internationally dispersed, and conventional real-world evidence generation is difficult, high quality research can still be carried out. We were delighted to see atomCAT highlighted in the House of Lords debate on the Rare Cancers Bill, used as an example of how privacy-preserving international collaboration can accelerate improvement in rare cancer care.
The first STAR-TREC data was reported and showed that short course radiotherapy vs chemoradiotherapy for organ preservation in early-stage rectal cancer was beneficial: more organ preservation with long-course chemoradiotherapy (61% vs 80% surgery-free organ survival 12 months).
The three-year results from PLATO ACT 4 were presented by Professor David Sebag-Montefiore at ESTRO 2025 and published by The Lancet Oncology simultaneously. Results show that reduced dose Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy (IMRT) is as effective as the standard dose for early-stage anal cancer, but with fewer side effects and improved quality of life for patients.