Diagnostics


New blood F


or many patients, the distinctive thing about an endoscopy is the one-eyed tube it sends worming into their torso through their mouth or anus. Laxatives might be required to clear bowels beforehand, but the fibre-optic spelunker that goes in tends to cause more anxiety than whatever airborne particles it might push or suck out – particularly as they are usually too small and light to be detected, passing easily around and through surgical masks, and sitting in the air long after the patient responsible for them has left.


Those tiny particles became hugely significant in 2020. As the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic swept


10


across the planet, the spray-releasing procedures that allow doctors to see what’s happening inside their patients had to be curtailed to limit the spread of the virus. Oncology is yet to recover. “Invasive diagnostics are what we call aerosol- generating procedures, and can create a spray in the room that carries Covid,” explains Dr Naureen Starling, consultant medical oncologist at The Royal Marsden NHS Trust in London and a clinical senior lecturer at the Institute for Cancer Research. “That aerosol can infect the staff, infect the room and, therefore, infect other patients going through that room. Suddenly our diagnostics were switched off, and we had patients


Practical Patient Care / www.practical-patient-care.com


The almost total shutdown in invasive cancer diagnostics during the fi rst wave of Covid-19 focused attention on the need for alternatives. Now, all eyes are turning to liquid biopsies. Tim Gunn talks to Naureen Starling, consultant medical oncologist at The Royal Marsden NHS Trust in London and a clinical senior lecturer at the Institute for Cancer Research, about how simple blood tests could save lives.


Connect world/Shutterstock.com


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59