Teesside Oncology ResearCH (TORCH)

By Professor Vikki Rand

TORCH is a partnership between Teesside University’s National Horizons Centre (NHC) and the Tees Valley Research Alliance at University Hospital Tees, led by Professor Vikki Rand and Dr Sweta Sharma Saha as co-lead.

Why do we need TORCH?

We are living through a period of significant transformation across the health and care system. The 10-year Health Plan for England is making three big shifts to how the NHS works, that seizes the opportunities provided by new technologies, medicines and innovations to deliver better care for all patients – wherever they live and whatever they earn.

The Tees Valley faces significant cancer challenges, with incidence, mortality and prevalence rates generally above regional and national averages, driven heavily by deprivation and lifestyle factors. Areas like Middlesbrough and Hartlepool show high rates of late diagnosis, lung cancer and premature deaths, with major disparities between affluent and deprived wards.

Key stats

• There is a 10-year life expectancy gap at birth between men in the most and least deprived neighbourhoods in the region – the gap is highest in Stockton-on-Tees at 14.5 years and lowest in Durham at 10.3 years. For women, the gap is over 8 years (ranging from 8.2 years in County Durham to 13.9 years in Stockton-on-Tees).
• In the Tees Valley, the under-75 mortality rate from cancer is worse than the England average for all localities except Darlington, which is similar.
• In Hartlepool, the under-75 mortality rate from cancer is at a 15-year low of 150.1 per 100,000 population, however this is the highest rate in the North East and the third highest rate in England.
• Middlesbrough has some of the highest rates of early cancer deaths in the country.
• Hartlepool recorded exceptionally high rates of lung cancer and breast cancer mortality in recent years.

This disparity underscores the need for targeted public health interventions and resource allocation to address the underlying factors contributing to these elevated rates. Researchers from NHC are currently working with clinicians and industry partners to address some of these challenges, covering cancers such as:

• ovarian
• pancreatitis and pancreatic cancer
• head and neck
• haematology
• bone
• respiratory.

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