BAD-NDRS partnership

The British Association of Dermatologists (BAD) and the National Disease Registry Service (NDRS) partnership is a collaborative and multidisciplinary team with clinical, epidemiological, and analytical expertise. Using the high-quality national skin cancer data, the partnership aims to support patient care and education, healthcare planning and research.

A post-doctoral data analyst is embedded within NDRS, funded by the BAD, to develop and complete selected projects.

The main focus of the BAD-NDRS partnership is improving the quality of skin cancer data and encouraging the inclusion of skin cancer statistics in national publications.

The partnership and steering committee were established in 2020 and meet three times a year to discuss the future direction of the partnership and evaluate project ideas for priority and feasibility.

Skin cancer is the most common type of cancer in the UK, with 1-in-5 people expected to be diagnosed in their lifetime and increasing incidence rates. NDRS national cancer data provides a valuable resource for understanding skin cancer care and provides significant opportunities for research.

The partnership’s current work includes:

1. A national skin cancer services review at NHS trust and ICB level to establish geographic variation in incidence, survival, treatment, and pathways, using patient demographics. As well as evaluate variation over time including before and after the covid-19 pandemic, from 2013-2024.

2. Analysis and providing context to underserved populations, such as, skin cancer in under 25-year-olds, skin cancer in organ transplant recipients, and highlighting rarer cancers such as digital papillary adenocarcinoma or acral lentiginous melanoma.

The partnership has delivered the following projects:

3. The Get Data Out (GDO) skin partition and data on incidence, survival, treatment, and routes to diagnosis on all registered skin tumours diagnosed between 2013-19 in England. Openly available data is here , which will be updated annually, and the published article is available here.

4. Improved the methodology for counting basal cell carcinoma (BCC) and cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (cSCC) tumours to allow for a more accurate representation of the tumour burden in the UK.

5. Evaluation of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on skin cancer incidence in the UK using the rapid registration dataset. Published article available here.

6. Geographic variation of skin cancer by cancer alliance. Published article available here.

7. A summary and full report on the incidence and epidemiological trends of basal cell carcinomas and cutaneous squamous cell carcinomas in the UK 2013-2018. The published article is available here (Kwiatkowska M, Ahmed S, Ardern-Jones MR et al. A summary of the updated report on the incidence and epidemiological trends of keratinocyte cancers in the UK 2013-2018. Br J Dermatol. 2022 Feb;186(2):367-369.

And
Kwiatkowska M, Ahmed S, Ardern-Jones M et al. An updated report on the incidence and epidemiological trends of keratinocyte cancers in the United Kingdom 2013-2018. Skin Health Dis. 2021 Aug 18;1(4):e61.)

8. An analysis of patients by broad ethnic group diagnosed with skin cancer between 2013 and 2020 in England. Describing differences in incidence and patient demographics (age, gender, deprivation, etc.) and tumour specific details (stage, type etc.) by ethnic group.

9. A project to identify and describe patients who develop multiple Basal Cell Carcinomas and Squamous Cell Carcinomas of the skin in national data diagnosed between 2013 and 2020 in England.

We are continuously developing new project ideas, please get in touch with the BAD research team using the contact form below.