Alastair Greystoke
Honorary Medical Oncologist & Professor of Oncology The Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust & Newcastle University
Professor Greystoke joined Newcastle University and the Northern Centre for Cancer Care in 2014 after 8 years spent at the University of Manchester/ Christie NHS Trust. He is one of 4 consultants that run the Sir Bobby Robson Early Clinical Trials Centre at the Freeman hospital in Newcastle,and has a special interest in the development of new anti-cancer drugs for patients with lung cancer. He leads systemic therapy research for NSCLC in the North-East, with a portfolio of Phase I-IV studies. In addition he is the Clinical Director for Cancer for the Yorkshire, Hull and North East England Genomic Medicine Service and led the NHSE pilot assessing the cost-effectiveness of cfDNA in patients presenting with advanced lung cancer. He is the Joint Chief Investigator of the CONCORDE platform (adding in new drugs to radical radiotherapy in lung cancer), and leads the Pharmacodynamic Biomarker team at Newcastle University Cancer.
Seminars
- The lung cancer “liquid first” circulating tumour DNA pilot showed the feasibility of a national service: which is cost-effective and improves outcomes
- This led to a commissioned service in this setting and in breast cancer patients becoming resistant to treatment
- Future use cases include ctDNA as a marker of minimal residual disease to both escalate and de-escalate treatment following surgery or curative radiotherapy
- Barriers remain, including setting up “business as usual” services and educating the workforce in interpreting and using these new technologies
