Question: Are new methods of detecting cancer generally accepted?

Greg Melia answered on 8 Mar 2016:

Hi Katie, you ask some really good questions.

Whenever a drug or treatment is introduced, it has to undergo clinical trials before it can be prescribed on the NHS. It also has to be CE marked before it can be used in hospital, which means that it meets the EU standards for safety, i.e. it won’t electrocute anyone or anything like that. Once I’ve got a working system, my company will first need to send it for CE mark testing, and after they’ve done that, they’ll need to submit it for clinical trials, where people test to see whether it can be used safely and whether it has any effect and so hospitals should spend the governments money in buying it. So if someone comes up with a new way of doing something (like detecting cancer), there are quite a lot of hurdles to jump over before they can start using it in hospital.