Home
Up

Spring Meeting: April 23rd & 24th 2005, Chancellors, Manchester

This year with the absence of the BCRM the meeting moved to the Spring and was again held in Manchester. The programme was organised by Andrew Wardley and Adam Dangoor and included the treatment of breast cancer, colorectal cancer, and lung cancer. Alison Norton as usual did an excellent job of sorting out the logistics liaising between the venue, sponsors, and attendees.

The sponsors this year were Roche, Pierre Fabre Oncology, Amgen, and Chugai Pharma UK. Thanks to them and also to the 11 consultants who gave up time over the weekend to come and give lectures and lead the discussions. 60 trainees supported the event by attending and the feedback indicated that they found the meeting useful and enjoyable. We will hopefully see even more trainees at the Autumn meeting particularly those from London who were in short supply at the weekend.

At the CPIT business meeting a number of issues were raised:

• At Edinburgh there is a move to put medical oncology trainees on the general medicine on-call rota. This will be strongly resisted as it has a number of implications including specialty training issues, competency to cover general medicine, and recruitment.
• Some trainees are finding that the new curriculum is already being followed at their PYAs. Some flexibility must be maintained for those who have completed the majority of their training under old curriculum versions.
• The annual CPIT meeting will take place in the autumn. Trainees are encouraged to attend and confirm their places as soon as possible after it is announced.

Below is a brief summary of the talks and links to handouts. Handouts are posted for personal use by trainees in Medical Oncology. They are supplied by the kind agreement of the authors. The ACP does not accept responsibility for their content. They are supplied as pdf files, a link to reader software is below.

• Medical Oncology: Future of the specialty. Peter Clark, ACP Chairman. Peter gave an outline of some of the issues facing trainees. There are now 207 consultants and 222 trainees. Of note only 14% of consultants are over 50, so new posts will be needed in the next few years. SpR numbers allocated are likely to fall and consultants will more often be working without registrar support. The new curriculum will be published soon and competency assessments will be formalised. The provision of cancer services will continue to develop with a changing balance between cancer centres and units as more consultant appointments are made.

• Adjuvant treatment of breast cancer: chemotherapy advances. Dr Chris Poole, Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham. Handout

• Adjuvant treatment in old/young. Prof Bob Leonard, Singleton Hospital, Swansea. Handout

• Breast Cancer: The use of aromatase inhibitors in the adjuvant setting: Moderator: Prof Leonard

  •  Immediate use. Dr David Cameron, Western General, Edinburgh Handout
  •  Sequential use after tamoxifen. Judith Bliss, Director ICR-CTSU & Head of Clinical Trials Section, ICR. Handout
  •  Extended adjuvant letrozole. Dr Andrew M. Wardley, Christie Hospital, Manchester. Handout

• Bone health and adjuvant bisphosphonates. Prof Rob Coleman, Western Park Hospital, Sheffield, NCRI BCSG Chairman. Handout

• Adjuvant treatment of NSCLC. Prof Penella Woll, Western Park, Sheffield. Handout

• Treatment of colorectal cancer in the adjuvant and metastatic setting. Dr Juan Valle, Christie Hospital. Handout

• Novel treatments for metastatic colorectal cancer. Dr Mark Saunders, Christie Hospital. Handout

• Fertility issues in breast cancer treatment. Dr Alison Jones, Royal Free Hospital. Handout