Squamous carcinoma of the tongue

Dr Furrat Amen is a Consultant ENT, Head and Neck, and Thyroid Surgeon at Peterborough City Hospital and Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge. Oracle is funding a pathologist to work on a pioneering tongue cancer study under Dr Amen’s supervision.

The pathologist will look at tumour samples from patients who did and didn’t develop tongue cancer metastases to try and identify key molecules of interest (or ‘biomarkers’). If different biomarkers are found to exist between the samples with and without metastases, clinicians could then stratify patients according to the biomarkers in their tumour. This could then allow patients to receive personalised treatments tailored to their cancer. Those in whom prolonged survival is expected could receive standard treatment and those in whom shortened survival is expected could receive more experimental or aggressive therapies.