NEWS & IMPACT
From GP Referral to Brain Scan: Improving the Pathway for Suspected Brain Tumours
Lancashire Teaching Hospitals introduced a direct GP‑to‑MRI brain scan pathway to speed up diagnosis for patients with symptoms that might suggest brain cancer. The team presented this work as an e-poster at the Association of British Neurologists Annual Conference in Birmingham, UK, 6-8 May 2026. Reviewing almost 2,800 scans over eight years showed the pathway is safe and effective: most patients were quickly reassured with normal or non‑serious findings, serious conditions were identified earlier, and unnecessary neurology outpatient appointments were avoided. A weekly specialist review ensured the right patients were fast‑tracked to neurology or neuro‑oncology, while pilot AI tools showed promise in supporting future pathway improvements.
Small vessel disease: common, costly and too often overlooked
See this LinkedIn post about our recent study, published in BioMedCentral Neurology showing how white matter hyperintensities—a core marker of cerebral small vessel disease—are very common on routine brain MRI, increase strongly with age, and are likely under-recognised despite their clinical importance.
Headache Coding in Emergency Care: A System-Level Opportunity
Researchers at Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Lancaster University found that most headache patients in Emergency Departments are recorded using very broad labels, meaning important details about their condition are often lost. This is mainly due to limitations in hospital coding systems, not clinician practice. Improving how headaches are coded could lead to better patient care, more accurate data, and more efficient NHS services.
Improving Brain Scan Sensitivity in Small Vessel Disease
This study shows that a new statistical approach—hierarchical Bayesian modelling—can significantly improve how diffusion MRI data are analysed, producing more accurate and reliable maps of brain tissue structure. By reducing noise and unrealistic values, the method reveals subtle changes in brain tissue that standard techniques miss. Importantly, it can detect abnormalities in small vessel disease that were previously hidden in conventional analyses.