A Brain Tumour Diagnosis in Two Hours? What Is This, the NHS on Steroids?
Thanks to a gadget called ROBIN (sadly not in tights), brain tumour patients may finally dodge the Victorian pathology shuffle and get answers before their tumour learns to juggle.
Now I’ve never claimed to be a neurosurgeon. In fact, I faint at the sight of a grape being peeled. But even I know that brain cancer is the sort of diagnosis you don’t want to hear after waiting two months in NHS purgatory while your tumour is off enjoying a gap year in a pathology lab in Slough.
So, when I read that some clever-clogs scientists in Nottingham have managed to compress an eight-week brain tumour diagnosis into just two hours, I very nearly dropped my bacon sandwich. It’s like going from dial-up internet to fibre-optic broadband in one caffeinated leap… except instead of buffering Netflix, it’s your actual brain on the line.
Previously, if you had a brain tumour, the NHS would kindly offer you the full slow-cooker experience. You’d be wheeled into surgery, they’d scoop out a bit of the unwanted brain-matter souffle, then send it off to be tested using what I can only assume is Victorian pigeon post. Six to eight weeks later, someone might finally ring you up and say: “Ah yes, it’s definitely cancer. Please hold while we find your chemotherapy.” Meanwhile, your tumour’s been living its best life, redecorating your cerebrum and possibly putting an offer in on your spinal cord.
Now though… and this is where I nearly applauded: they’ve developed a test called ROBIN. And no, it’s not a chirpy sidekick in tights, but a piece of portable tech that analyses tumour DNA while you’re still in surgery. That’s right. As the surgeon is elbow-deep in your frontal lobe, this gadget is already sequencing your cancer like it’s entering Britain’s Got Talent.
The whole thing costs £450, which is roughly what the NHS pays for a biro and three NHS England Zoom calls. Yet it doesn’t just give you the results quickly, it gives you all the results. Previously you needed four or five separate tests, each no doubt requiring their own clipboard-wielding bureaucrat and a lab technician who only works Thursdays. Now with this one test, you get everything in one go. Like a chemotherapy tasting menu, minus the wine pairing and soul.
Professor Matt Loose, who sounds more like a minor Bond villain than a medical pioneer; says the test is not only faster but cheaper. Which is exactly the sort of sentence that makes NHS managers need a lie-down and a biscuit. Faster? Cheaper? With results that help the surgeon mid-operation? That’s not the NHS way. You’re supposed to wait. You’re supposed to suffer. You’re supposed to be told after eight weeks of worry that your results were lost in transit and the person who was meant to call you has been seconded to “digital transformation”. Again.
But here’s where it gets really clever. This technology was trialled in 50 surgeries with a 100% success rate. That’s astonishing! In NHS terms, that’s like being promised tea and actually getting tea: and it being hot. One patient was diagnosed with a stage 4 glioblastoma. Instead of waiting two months for answers, they had results in a week. They could start planning their next steps almost immediately, instead of spending weeks in diagnostic limbo, being told to “stay positive” while watching Bake Off and screaming internally.
This ultimately is what makes this revolutionary. Because if you’ve ever been near cancer treatment, and sadly I have, you know that the chemotherapy is the easy bit. It’s the waiting and waiting and waiting that breaks you. The long, slow horror of not knowing. The tests, the delays, more tests, the half-explanations, lost test results, followed by more “just wait and see” waffle.
This new test cuts through all that like a hot scalpel through frontal cortex. It says, here’s what it is. Here’s what we’ll do. Let’s get on with it!
So hats off to the Nottingham team. In a country where post gets lost, doctors retire before seeing your notes and anything “innovative” is usually just a new form of queueing, this… this is a genuine triumph.
Now, if they could just invent something similar to diagnose government incompetence, we’d all be sorted. Ouch….
###
Chris Geiger, Author of The Cancer Survivors Club.
Daily Dose of Disbelief!
Bsky: @chrisgeiger.com
Bsky: @thecancersurvivorsclub.com
Bsky: @dailydoseofdisbelief.com
----