NHS Pilots Rapid Brain Tumour Genomic Test — SkimNews
Get the Health newsletter
Daily health & science — research, biotech, public health, the studies worth knowing. Free.
- NHS England is piloting a rapid genomic test for brain tumours that can slash diagnosis time from up to 8 weeks to 2 hours across five specialist centres in Nottingham, Birmingham, London, and Newcastle.
- The test uses a shoebox-sized Oxford Nanopore sequencing machine running software developed at the University of Nottingham, which reads tumour DNA through tiny pores to reveal its genomic fingerprint.
- Steve Palmer, 55, from Nottingham, was diagnosed with a grade 4 glioblastoma via the test mid-surgery at Queens Medical Centre — a neuropathology team called the theatre with the result after the nanopore machine had been running for just 20 minutes.
- Stuart Smith, the consultant neurosurgeon who led Steve's operation, said the technology "seems almost magical," adding that knowing the tumour type mid-procedure can change how aggressively surgeons operate.
- The pilot will later extend to sites in Bristol, Oxford, Leeds, and Manchester, building on an earlier project already under way in Nottingham and Birmingham.
- Prof Frankie Swords, NHS medical director, called the scheme a "world first," saying "no other health service" is rolling the technology out across multiple hospitals.
Why it matters: The pilot targets the roughly 12,000 UK patients diagnosed with a primary brain tumour each year — the biggest cancer killer of children and adults under 40 — turning weeks of agonising waiting into same-day answers. For some patients, mid-surgery diagnosis means surgeons can be radical on curable tumours or more cautious on aggressive ones, lowering the risk of brain damage.
Ask SkimNews
