Dr Emma Hall

The Cancer Research UK funded Clinical Trials & Statistics Unit (ICR-CTSU) provides the scientific leadership and operational management to develop, conduct and report high quality, innovative randomised trials, with integrated translational and psychosocial research. ICR-CTSU is a National Clinical Research Institute (NCRI) Accredited and UK Clinical Research Collaboration (UKCRC) Registered Clinical Trials Unit with an established track record.

Recently published trials have led directly to changes in clinical practice. Our research work is focussed in selected clinical and therapeutic areas, with Dr Hall leading the ICR-CTSU Urology and Head and Neck Trials Team.

The aims of the ICR-CTSU’s research are to continue to develop, conduct and report high quality trials, and associated research of scientific importance, that will impact directly on clinical practice within the NHS and internationally. Building on past successes, and recognising the changing national and international priorities for clinical trials, our programme of trials have the following focus.

Prostate Cancer
• Improving the effectiveness of radiotherapy through tailoring of treatment, hypofractionation and developments in radiotherapeutic technique
• Development of targeted therapies in castrate refractory disease

Muscle invasive bladder cancer
• Developing tailored bladder preservation strategies through improvements in (chemo) radiotherapeutic technique

Non-muscle invasive bladder cancer
• Developing trials in the surgical setting

Rare urological cancers
• Developing trials in penile and upper urinary tract cancers
• Collaborating internationally to extend the pool of eligible patients

Testicular cancer
• Improving outcomes for patients undergoing systemic therapy

Head and neck cancers
• Improving the effectiveness of radiotherapy through hypofractionation and developments in radiotherapeutic technique

Fundamental to both the scientific hypothesis, and to the conduct of these trials, is the targeting of treatments towards patients with the most potential for therapeutic gain. In addition to evaluation of therapeutic outcome, scientific output will be maximised by integrated biomarker directed translational research; patient assessed quality of life and symptom evaluations and statistical and trial methodology research.

Emma Hall is Deputy Director (Research) of the Cancer Research UK funded Clinical Trials & Statistics Unit (ICR-CTSU).  She is a medical statistician with interests in both cancer clinical trials and epidemiology having gained an MSc in Statistics with Applications in Medicine (University of Southampton, 1994) and a PhD in Epidemiology with a thesis titled: ’Benign breast disease as a risk factor for breast cancer’ (University College London, 1999).  She is a Chartered Statistician and fellow of the Royal Statistical Society and has membership of the Society for Clinical Trials and the International Society of Clinical Biostatistics.

The focus of her more recent work involves trials aimed at maximising benefit in the treatment of urological cancers and trials of radiotherapy in head and neck cancer.  She collaborates with clinical coordinators and investigators nationally and is a member of the National Clinical Research Institute (NCRI) Bladder and Testis Clinical Studies Groups and its Clinical and Translational Radiotherapy Research Group.  She is a member of Cancer Research UK’s Clinical Trials Awards and Advisory Committee and sits on a number of independent data monitoring committees for national Phase II and III trials.