IMPROVE UK, Manchester

The IMPRESS Initiative - Improving outcomes for ovarian cancer patients by refining evidenced based tools that drive surgical standardisation.

Lead by Professor Richard Edmondson.

The background

Currently, the decision about what treatment a woman should receive is made by a multidisciplinary team (MDT). Five treatment options are available: surgery followed by chemotherapy; chemotherapy with surgery part way through; chemotherapy alone; surgery alone; or no treatment. Different teams around the country often have different approaches recommending surgery, based not only on factors such as age and fitness of the woman, the extent and stage of cancer, but also the surgical expertise of the cancer team, theatre time, and the ethos of that team. Patient preferences are rarely incorporated into this decision-making, and there is little or no guidance on how to support an individual patient to make a decision that is right for her. 

The plan

This project is a collaboration between six gynae-cancer centres, collecting data to develop decision aids to accurately predict outcomes for women undergoing different treatments. These decision aids can then be used by patients and their clinicians to make a shared decision about the best treatment option for that patient.  

The project will reduce the postcode lottery of treatment, while harnessing the power of evidence based, shared decision making between patients and clinicians.