Pleural Disease & Lung Cancer
Pleural disease encompasses a range of diseases involving the lung lining. Research in this area has evolved significantly in the UK over the last decade. Sheffield Teaching Hospital is a tertiary pleural centre that is actively involved in national pleural clinical trials hoping to allow patients of Sheffield an opportunity to take part in practice changing trials in disease areas such as cancer related pleural effusions, pleural infection and pleural malignancy such as mesothelioma.
Management of pleural disease is more interventional in comparison to other sub-specialities of respiratory. A dedicated pleural procedure room is based at the Northern General Hospital, where a majority of the pleural procedures are performed. Most patients are managed via an ambulatory rapid access pathway where procedures are performed as day cases. Dedicated pleural clinics conducted by pleural specialists also allow review of patients on an urgent ad hoc basis.
Doctors Eihab Bedawi, Duneesha de Fonseka and Leon Lewis lead on the pleural trials in Sheffield.
Lung cancer is the second commonest incident cancer in men and women and the commonest cause of cancer death in both sexes in the UK. It is known to be associated with smoking and a number of other workplace exposures. Approximately 450 patients are investigated and diagnosed with lung cancer in STH each year.
We are fortunate to have a well integrated, multidisciplinary lung cancer service in the Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, and are the Cancer Centre for the North Trent Cancer Network.
All patients suspected or known to have lung cancer are discussed in the multidisciplinary forum and management decisions are planned by the team. The STH MDT hosts the network mesothelioma MDT and all patients diagnosed with mesothelioma in the network are discussed (as a second opinion) by the STH lung cancer team.
As STH is the Cancer Centre for the North Trent Cancer Network, patients from Barnsley, Chesterfield, Doncaster and Rotherham hospitals who require radiotherapy or thoracic surgery are sent to Sheffield. Most chemotherapy is delivered locally in the units, and it is rare for patients to need to travel to STH for chemotherapy.
