Colorectal cancer patients tend to fare better in hospitals that are actively involved in research, researchers in Leeds say today.
The benefits apply to patients given standard treatment as well as those taking part in trials, according to the study.
The analysis, published in the journal Gut, found an additional 3.8 percentage points in five-year survival rates for those treated in the most research active hospitals.
The findings come from an analysis of care of more than 200,000 patients diagnosed between 2001 and 2008.
Hospitals were classed as being research active if 16% of bowel cancer patients were involved with trials in a particular year. This included many general hospitals as well as centres of excellence, the researchers say.
In non-research hospitals some 6.5% of patients died within 30 days of surgery compared with 5% in research-active hospitals.
Some five years after diagnosis, 44.8% of patients were alive after being treated in research-active hospitals. Among patients from non-research hospitals, the figure was 41%.
Researcher Professor Matt Seymour, from Leeds University, UK, said:
“The effects may seem small – just a few per cent – but for a cancer that affects more than 40,000 people in the UK every year a few per cent means a lot of lives.
“We have long known that clinical research is crucial for discovering better treatments to help future generations of patients, but this study tells us something new.
“It shows that, by getting involved in research trials, hospitals may ‘up their game’ and provide better care for all the patients they treat even in the short term, long before the results of those trial are known.”
Downing A, et al. High hospital research participation and improved colorectal cancer survival outcomes: a population-based study Gut 20 October 2016; doi: 10.1136/gutjnl-2015-311308
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