This demonstrator is a decision support system designed to provide individualised risk prognostication in postoperative chemotherapy treatment of Dukes B stage patients with bowel cancer.
Bowel cancer is one of the most common cancers in the UK with 35,000 people diagnosed every year. More than a third of all bowel cancer patients are offered postoperative chemotherapy to reduce the risk of recurrence and prolong survival. At present, however, many patients are exposed to chemotherapy with the risk of side effects but negligible benefit. This is particularly true for patients at low risk of recurrence (Dukes B). New genomic tests to predict prognosis have recently been developed such as the microarray gene expression profiling for Dukes B patients by chip provider, ALMAC Diagnostics, and provide good overall prognostic accuracy. But as it remains unclear how microarray gene expression profiling can be optimally combined with conventional evidence to give accurate risk estimates, this computerised decision support system has been developed to bring together standard clinicopathological information with gene expression profile data.