Melissa Barlow

Melissa's research focuses on improving the early and timely detection of cancer in primary care. Her work evaluates symptoms, diagnostic tests and clinical pathways to understand how cancer can be identified earlier and more accurately, with a particular interest in using routinely collected primary care data to improve cancer risk assessment and diagnostic decision-making. 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 variation and inequalities in primary care blood testing and cancer diagnosis, including whether differences in testing contribute to variation in cancer risk assessment across patient groups
• Investigating changes in routine blood test results before a diagnosis of leukaemia, with the aim of improving earlier identification in primary care
• Evaluating the diagnostic performance of faecal immunochemical testing (FIT) for colorectal cancer in younger adults and investigating how diagnostic pathways could be optimised for this population

Research skills:

• Design and analysis of retrospective cohort and case-control studies
• Diagnostic accuracy and evaluation of cancer symptoms, blood tests, and other diagnostic tests
• Development and evaluation of clinical prediction models and risk assessment approaches
• Regression modelling and multivariable analysis using Stata
• Systematic reviews, evidence synthesis, and meta-analysis
• Patient and public involvement and engagement (PPIE) throughout the research process
• Research project management, multidisciplinary collaboration, and research leadership