Melissa Barlow

Melissa's research focuses on improving the early and timely detection of cancer in primary care. Her work examines diagnostic pathways, evaluates the accuracy and effectiveness of diagnostic tests, investigates how routinely collected blood tests can be used to identify patients at increased risk of cancer, and explores inequalities in cancer diagnosis. She uses large-scale linked electronic health record datasets, including the Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD), Hospital Episode Statistics (HES), cancer registry data from the National Cancer Registration and Analysis Service (NCRAS), the UK Biobank, and bespoke project-specific datasets.

She is Co-Lead for the Exeter Collaboration for Academic Primary Care (APEx) Cancer Theme where she helps coordinate the theme's research activities and contributes to developing the strategic direction of cancer research within APEx.

Her current research projects include:

• Evaluating the rates at which patients from different ethnic groups undergo primary care blood tests and how this can affect cancer prediction
• Assessing pre-diagnostic full blood count trends before a leukaemia diagnosis 

Research skills:

• Management, preparation and analysis of large healthcare datasets (CPRD, HES, NCRAS, UK Biobank).
• Diagnostic accuracy studies and test evaluation for cancer risk
• Regression modelling and complex statistical analysis using Stata
• Systematic reviews and meta-analysis