Mesothelioma

Europe's largest prospective, multicentre, longitudinal cohort study. The project aims to collect information on demographics, symptoms, and biomarkers from a representative UK mesothelioma population to help characterise different disease phenotypes, build a bio-repository of serial blood and pleural fluid samples, and provide a resource for future trials.

ASSESS-Meso has provided a platform for several sub-studies including:

• Biomarker Validation* - This includes validating the use of the Ki67 proliferation index to augment tumour grading for better survival prediction in epithelioid mesothelioma. Research demonstrates that serial serum mesothelin (SM) measurements can reliably track disease status and predict progression, potentially offering a cheaper, community-based alternative to CT scans.
• TILT* - An NIHR-funded feasibility study investigating intra-pleural bacterial immunotherapy. This trial utilised the highly pragmatic "Trial within a Cohort" (TwiC) methodology.
• Several smaller sub-studies within the ASSESS-Meso cohort, including research into prevalence and evolution of pain, mental health challenges, and factors affecting decision making in people with mesothelioma.
• Genomics

Additional studies are planned within ASSESS-Meso, including:

• NAV-meso - addressing barriers to equitable access to mesothelioma treatment.
• Candid-meso - aiming to co-design, refine and operationalise a candidacy based patient navigation tool to support decision-making and reduce inequity in mesothelioma care across the UK.

ASSESS-Meso links in with several national and international mesothelioma networks, including:

• PREDICT-meso – a £5m CRUK-funded project comprised of expert mesothelioma researchers from across the world, designed to collect and utilise human tissues and data to design new therapies and early detection tests for Mesothelioma. Within PREDICT, Bristol contributed to the meso-ORIGINS study.
• NCIMI meso-Q – a £9m INNOVATE-UK funded collaboration with the National Consortium of Intelligent Medical Imaging to apply artificial intelligence to enhance mesothelioma detection and quantification on radiological imaging.
• IMIG Collaborative Research Working Group – an international collaboration with the goal to align mesothelioma research practices via consistent and reproducible outcome measure collection.  ASSESS-Meso is likely to be the vanguard UK submission to the cohort and will set the standard for future data collection.