YORKSURe: urine self-testing kits

The YORKSURe trial is investigating whether urine self-testing kits and community early detection clinics are an effective way of screening for bladder health problems including bladder cancer.

This trial will assess and compare the use of urine self-testing kits and community early-detection clinics in diagnosing people at high risk of developing bladder cancer. The £1.5 million trial, involving 6000 people, will assess the possibility of an early detection programme for bladder cancer in Yorkshire, where survival rates are lower than the national average.

The kits are being sent to 3,000 men across the region aged between 65 and 80. The trial will also offer kits to an additional 2,000 men and women taking part in a lung screening trial funded by Yorkshire Cancer Research to help determine whether urine screening can be embedded within community lung cancer screening programmes.

People receiving the at-home kits, which are being provided by TestCard Ltd, will be asked to self-test their urine using a test strip which can detect traces of blood and other abnormalities. Those with a positive result will receive further urine testing and an ultrasound scan at a community early-detection clinic. The trial is being supported by Sheffield Teaching Hospitals’ Histopathology Department, who will use their state-of-the-art diagnostic facilities to validate test results.

The team, who process around 80,000 samples annually across a range of sub-specialist teams including urology and systemic cytology, will also see if artificial intelligence can be developed and used to read test results from the microscope to provide a streamlined pathway for issuing urine cytology results.

If successful, findings from the YORKSURe trial will be used to inform future bladder cancer studies and could lead to a national screening programme.

Led by Professor James Catto, Professor in Urological Surgery at the University of Sheffield and National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Research Professor, the trial will evaluate how likely people are to return their kits and whether self-testing leads to earlier diagnosis and improved survival rates where bladder cancer is found.

The study is being supported by Peter Sasieni, Professor of Cancer Prevention at King’s College London and co-ordinated by the King’s College London Cancer Prevention Trials Unit (CPTU).

The kits are being sent to 3,000 men across the region aged between 65 and 80. Bladder cancer is a particular problem in Yorkshire. Every year in Yorkshire, nearly 1,000 people are diagnosed with bladder cancer and more than 400  people die from it. Incidence rates are higher in the region than in England as a whole, and death rates from bladder cancer are also higher than the England average in some parts of Yorkshire, such as Barnsley, East Riding of Yorkshire, Hull, Leeds, York and Wakefield¹.

Visit the YORKSURe website

Read the academic trial summary