Quest Diagnostics, the world's leading provider of pathology diagnostic testing, information and services, today announced that it is hosting a closed, one-day advanced cancer diagnostics symposium in partnership with the Royal Society of Medicine. The meeting will be taking place on Tuesday 27^th September at the Royal Society of Medicine in London with registration beginning at 9am before the welcome address from Professor John Betteridge, Associate Dean of the RSM, at 9.25am.

The conference will provide an overview on the very latest advances in diagnostic assays useful for the management of cancer patients, as well as providing insights to physicians and health care providers about new technologies now available for commercial use in clinical diagnostic laboratories. 

Ian Barnes, National Clinical Director for Pathology, Department of Health and Professor Kikkeri Naresh from the Department of Histopathology at Imperial College London, will chair two main sessions featuring presentations by prominent researchers in the field of cancer diagnostics. Session one, held throughout the morning, predominately focuses on how specific technologies address detailed, clinically relevant issues in patient management and lead to an improvement in patient care.  In the afternoon, session two discusses the efforts needed to bring technologically advanced assays from research into clinical practice and the roles that doctors and laboratories have in the adoption of these tests.

One of the main reasons for late cancer diagnosis is insufficient access to tests and reporting[1], and attendees will have the opportunity to understand how pathology diagnostic tests can be used to improve the screening, diagnosis, therapy selection and monitoring of cancer patients. 

Speaker abstracts are available on request and post-event information will also be made available. In addition, the symposium holds 5 CPD (Continuing Professional Development) points. For further information, please visit http://www.questdiagnostics.co.uk

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[1]Sir Bruce Keogh, NHS Medical Director, to all Trust Chief Executives, August 2011 http://www.dh.gov.uk/prod_consum_dh/groups/dh_digitalassets/documents/digitalasset/dh_128972.pdf