Update From The Research Desk:

Mirrors Study

We are delighted to be funding The MIRRORS study which is being led by Christina Uwins in the Department of Gynaecological Oncology at The Royal Surrey County Hospital. You can learn about the study by reading about it on our research page (here). Here is Christina’s latest update:

What a year it has been!  Since last Christmas we have now achieved Sponsorship, Ethics approval, HRA approval and the MIRRORS Study opened on the 26th June 2020 in spite of the COVID-19 pandemic.  I was also awarded the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Applied Research Collaborations (ARC) Kent Surrey & Sussex (KSS) Greenshoots award to further support MIRRORS to supplement the main funding generously provided by GRACE Charity.

We will shortly have completed 6 months of recruitment and in this time we have reached 60% of our target recruitment.

We have presented MIRRORS at a National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Applied Research Collaborations (ARC) Kent Surrey & Sussex (KSS) Meeting and Internationally at the Thane Obstetrics & Gynaecological Society, India.

In June I presented at the Society of European Robotic Gynaecological Surgery (SERGS) conference, their first fully virtual conference presenting our Robotic surgery experience for Endometrial cancer.  Additionally, we presented 2 posters at the recent European Society of Gynaecological Oncology Conference at the beginning of this month, one introducing the MIRRORS study and the other presenting our excellent Endometrial cancer experience with Robotic Surgery.

So what’s next?  Once we complete this initial MIRRORS Feasibility trial we are looking to get MIRRORS RCT (randomised control trial) off the ground at a few centres next year. This will hopefully only require an ethics amendment and some minor tweaks to the current paperwork.

I have a special thank you for Mr Simon Butler-Manuel without whom MIRRORS would not exist.  Simon conceived the initial idea for MIRRORS and has been working his socks off operating so all eligible women have been able to be offered inclusion in the MIRRORS Study.  All the while he has also been a great support as my supervisor – Thank you so much.

I am so grateful to all of you for your support and encouragement in the early days of designing the study and to all our participants for being kind enough to put their trust in us by taking part in MIRRORS.  You are all wonderful and you never cease to amaze me with your selflessness and kindness.