Prof Christina Fleming's Cancer Researcher Story
"The RECTIFY (Rectal Cancer Evaluation for Treatment Impact on Quality of Life) research network is focused on the survivorship needs of rectal cancer patients, because they’re getting diagnosed younger and they’re also living longer."
"We want to study their survivorship needs at a coordinated national level, which hasn’t been done before in Ireland.”
As part of Bowel Cancer Awareness Month this April, the Irish Cancer Society are delighted to announce we recently awarded funding to Professor Christina Fleming, a Consultant Colorectal Surgeon in the University Hospital Limerick/University of Limerick and Surgical Oncology Lead at Limerick Cancer Trials, for the RECTIFY study as part of our Clinician Research Leadership Award.
This award aims to provide consultant-level doctors with funding to lead out on patient focused cancer research. Prof Fleming’s research is focused on supporting people diagnosed with rectal cancer. The first part of the study, RECTIFY1, focuses on the sexual health of women with rectal cancer and is due to commence in the coming months.
“Sexual health is an important part of life and can be impacted by treatments for rectal cancer,” says Prof Fleming. “A lot of people are being diagnosed with rectal cancer at a younger age now, while they’re still in their reproductive years, so it’s an important part of survivorship and quality of life for all patients who’ve been diagnosed with rectal cancer.
"RECTIFY1 will invite female rectal cancer patients diagnosed over the past five years from all eight rectal cancer centres in Ireland to participate using questionnaires, also known as Patient-Reported Outcome Measures (PROM). This hasn’t been done in Ireland at all before."
"The aim is to create and validate a more accurate PROM as a step towards better assessment and understanding of sexual health in women following rectal cancer treatment. This has been achieved in male patients previously."
This is just one facet of the wider RECTIFY study, which has been developed by a national research network focused on improving life after rectal cancer for all patients. Studies and trials delivered by this group will research methods of identifying problems with how, for example, the bowel might work and be impacted by rectal cancer treatments, as well as the overall impact on patient quality of life.
Prof Fleming adds: “This will enable the development of new supports and interventions to support patients following treatment.”
