The head and neck cancer program at the King’s Health Partners/ Integrated Cancer Centre (KHP /ICC) provides the framework for a group of basic scientists and clinicians with an interest in elucidating the biology of head and neck cancers.

Our aims are to develop strategies for early diagnosis, prediction of the response to treatment and the evaluation of novel therapeutics to improve the outcome for patients with HN cancers.

The centre provides a comprehensive service and approximately 500 new cases of cancer are diagnosed each year, including oral cavity, pharynx, sinonasal tract, larynx, salivary gland as well thyroid cancers. The multidisciplinary team of over 40 members includes maxillofacial, ENT, plastic and base of skull surgeons, medical and radiation oncologists, specialist pathologists, cytologists, radiologists, speech and language therapists, dietitians, and community support team and other allied health specialties.

Many patients give their consent to store samples in the Tissue and Databank to provide samples for laboratory research. Furthermore, the service recruits patients for entry into numerous national trials. Established laboratory research techniques are applied to clinical specimens from the Head and Neck Cancer Data and Tissue Bank, providing a valuable resource for many of our research projects.

Active research areas include cell signalling, regulation of cell cycle and apoptosis, detection and modulation of tumour hypoxia, microRNA regulation, molecular and immune-therapies, development of novel viral vectors, nanomedicine, peptide and protein based drug delivery, RNA-Seq, SNP and deep sequencing, ploidy analysis, biomarker discovery, HPV profiling, FRET/FLIM imaging, epidemiology, etc.

The head and neck research performed in the KHP is internationally renowned and receives a large number of requests from international students, dentists and doctors who wish to pursue a carrier in academic head and neck oncology.

There are a number of successful national and international collaborations including ICR/Royal Marsden London, UCL, Medical University of South Carolina, National Cancer Institute Milan, University of Dresden, TATA Cancer Hospital Mumbai, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology Ghana, etc.