Variation in the Use of Adjuvant Chemotherapy

Project reference number - 0038

Principal investigator – Dr Daniel Swinson

Plain language summary – In 2018, the Yorkshire Cancer Research Bowel Cancer Improvement Programme conducted research looking into whether the rates of chemotherapy given to patients after surgery, known as adjuvant chemotherapy, differed between hospitals both in Yorkshire and the Humber and nationally across England. The study found that the rates were different.

 Following this, oncologists in the Yorkshire and Humber region developed and published a new set of guidelines (known as the adjuvant treatment algorithm) with the aim of reducing the differences in treatment that patients were experiencing in the region.

Through comparing data from before the guidelines were introduced (before 2018) with data after (2019), this project aims to look at whether the introduction of the adjuvant treatment algorithm in Yorkshire and the Humber has had an impact on the variation in treatment given to patients.