SarcoSIGHT
Research type
Research Study
Full title
SarcoSIGHT- A randomised control trial of fluorescence guided sarcoma surgery versus standard of care
IRAS ID
324220
Contact name
Kenneth Rankin
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Newcastle Joint Research Office | The Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Duration of Study in the UK
4 years, 9 months, 1 days
Research summary
Sarcomas are rare cancers that can arise anywhere in the body, at any age. The cornerstone of treatment which aims to cure sarcoma patients is surgery. The surgeon must remove the cancer in its entirety, with healthy tissue surrounding the tumour, in order to minimise the chance of it coming back. Removal of these cancers is difficult; there is a careful balance to be made between removing just enough normal tissue to cure the disease and not enough to cause disability. This is compounded by a lack of established technologies to guide the surgeons during the procedure. A new technology has been developed which involves injecting patients with a dye called indocyanine green (ICG) the day before the surgery. ICG then collects in the tumour and drains quickly from normal tissue. During the operation, the surgeon can see the tumour glowing on a screen when imaged using a near-infrared camera. This is called Fluorescence Guided Surgery (FGS). The trial will randomly allocate patients with intermediate to high grade sarcomas to receive either standard of care surgery or FGS using ICG. The trial will take place in up to 21 sarcoma centres across the UK and will include 500 patients over a period of 30 months. Patients will be asked to complete some brief questionnaires before their operation and at 1, 3, 6, and 12 months after surgery. The aim of the trial is to determine if FGS using ICG allows the surgeon to remove the tumour in its entirety more often than with standard surgery.
REC name
East Midlands - Nottingham 1 Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
23/EM/0212
Date of REC Opinion
21 Sep 2023
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion