Professor Sudha Sundar

Professor Sudha Sundar

Institute of Cancer and Genomic Sciences
Professor of Gynaecological Cancer

Contact details

Telephone
+44 121 414 44021
Email
s.s.sundar@bham.ac.uk
Twitter
@sundar_sudha
View my research portal
Address
Institute of Cancer and Genomic Sciences
Vincent Drive
University of Birmingham
Birmingham
B15 2TT

Sudha Sundar is a gynaecological cancer surgeon and a clinical academic.

She trained in Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Oxford and in Gynaecological Oncology at the Three Counties cancer centre, Gloucestershire. Sudha trained in Molecular Oncology as a Cancer Research UK Clinical Fellow at the Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine, Oxford. She is the current President of the British Gynaecological Cancer Society, the first women gynaecological oncologist to be elected to this post. 

Teaching

Small group and bed side teaching to Year 4 and Year 5 medical students.

Postgraduate supervision

Currently supervising 2 MD students and 1 PhD student.

Research

My research programme investigates clinical challenges in patients with ovarian and endometrial cancer with a combined clinical trials/studies and translational research approach. 

Early diagnosis of Ovarian Cancer

Ovarian cancer (OC) is the deadliest and the most common cause of mortality among all gynaecological cancers. In 2012, 239,000 women were diagnosed with ovarian cancer and 152,000 women died worldwide (CRUK 2014). The high case fatality rate is at least partly attributed to the advanced stage at diagnosis in the majority of ovarian cancers. 

I am Chief Investigator for the ROCKETS project which aims to achieve earlier diagnosis of ovarian cancer, www.birmingham.ac.uk/ROCKETS. The project is a collaboration between international experts in the field of ovarian diagnosis – IOTA team KU Leuven, Professor Usha Menon at UCL, and Professor Jon Deeks team at UoB. A translational effort identify potential new biomarkers of early diagnosis is also underway; with Professor Weibke Arlt in steroidomics, Dr James Brenton at Cambridge University in circulating tumour DNA ( ROCkeTS-GEN) and with Dr James Flanagan and Dr Yasemin Hirst at Imperial University investigating purchasing behaviours using supermarket loyalty card data.

Surgery in ovarian cancer

Extensive surgical techniques have been shown to significantly improve survival in ovarian cancer, but may have significant impact on morbidity. I am Chief Investigator of the SOCQER 2 study, which has been commissioned by the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE). This is a prospective cohort study of Patient reported and survival outcomes from surgery in advanced stage ovarian cancer in 15 cancer centres in the UK and Melbourne, Australia and in Kolkata, India.

Surgical Outcomes in cancer surgery - I am cancer surgery work package lead for the NIHR global health research unit on Global Surgery[SS1] [SS2] . Which capacity builds for surgical research across sub-Saharan Africa, India and other countries

Ethnic Diversity in Cancer genomics – Working with Professors Ian Tomlinson, Jean-Baptiste Cazier, and partners across India ( PGIMER, PHFI) and Africa we are establishing matched cohort studies UK-India to investigate ethnic diversity in women’s cancer genomics. https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/news/latest/2018/02/ethnic-diversity-in-cancer-genomics-workshop.aspx

 CURRENT RESEARCH FUNDING

  1.  Early Diagnosis for Ovarian Cancer using commercial loyalty card data and purchase behaviours. Conditional offer from CRUK, July 2018 – 2021. amount TBC. Co-investigator.
  2. ROCKETS-GEN: Earlier detection of ovarian cancer using novel genomic technology. Conditional offer from CRUK, July 2018 – 2021, amount TBC (circa 400K). Chief Investigator.
  3. Institute of Global Innovation, University of Birmingham. £75,000 over 2 years. July 2018 – June 2020. Punjab-Birmingham women’s cancer genomics pilot study. Chief Investigator.
  4. MRC Proximity to Discovery funding. £15,500 for Punjab-Birmingham women's cancer genomics pilot study. October 2017. Chief Investigator
  5. Global Surgery Unit. NIHR. £7,000,000. August 2017- July 2021. Co-applicant and Work Package co-lead for Cancer surgery.
  6. Research training fellowship for Dr David Jeevan. Wellbeing of Women. August 2017-July 2019. £181,956. Sundar- Arlt supervisors.
  7. Novel repurposing of anticancer drugs to treat endometriosis. Wellbeing of Women grant. £ 198,864. Sep 2016- Aug 2019. Coinvestigator.
  8. SOCQER2, (Surgery in Ovarian Cancer, Quality of Life Evaluation Research) Medical Technologies Evaluation Panel, NICE award to Birmingham and Brunel external assessment centre, £ 1,538,000. April 2014-2017. Co-applicant
  9. ROCkeTS, Refining Ovarian Cancer Test Accuracy Scores. NIHR HTA. £ 1,000,038. Sep 2014- March 2020. Chief Investigator
  10.  Folic acid for menopausal symptoms in women with breast and gynaecological cancer NIHR RfPB. £250,000. Co-applicant. 2012 – ongoing with no cost extension.

Research Groups and Centres:

  • Institute of Global Innovation
  • CCB
  • IAHR (Deeks team)
  • BCTU
Subspecialised

Other activities

  • India Lead for College of Medical and Dental Sciences 2017 – date.
  • Academic lead for Cancer pillar, Birmingham Health Partners, 2018-date
  • President, British Gynaecological Cancer Society, July 2018
  • Lead, Ethnic diversity in Cancer Genomics substream, Gender Inequality theme, Institute of Global Innovation 

Publications

Recent publications

Article

Davenport, C, Rai, N, Sharma, P, Deeks, J, Berhane, S, Mallett, S, Saha, P, Solanki, R, Bayliss, S, Snell, K & Sundar, S 2022, 'Diagnostic models combining clinical information, ultrasound and biochemical markers for ovarian cancer: cochrane systematic review and meta-analysis', Cancers, vol. 14, no. 15, 3621. https://doi.org/10.3390/cancers14153621

Davenport, C, Rai Talapadi, N, Sharma, P, Deeks, J, Berhane, S, Mallett, S, Saha, P, Champaneria, R, Bayliss, S, Snell, K & Sundar, S 2022, 'Menopausal status, ultrasound and biomarker tests in combination for the diagnosis of ovarian cancer in symptomatic women', Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews.

Barr, CE, Funston, G, Jeevan, D, Sundar, S, Mounce, LTA & Crosbie, EJ 2022, 'The performance of HE4 alone and in combination with CA125 for the detection of ovarian cancer in an enriched primary care population', Cancers, vol. 14, no. 9, 2124. https://doi.org/10.3390/cancers14092124

Clamp, AR, James, EC, McNeish, IA, Dean, A, Kim, J-W, O'Donnell, DM, Gallardo-Rincon, D, Blagden, S, Brenton, J, Perren, TJ, Sundar, S, Lord, R, Dark, G, Hall, M, Banerjee, S, Glasspool, RM, Hanna, CL, Williams, S, Scatchard, KM, Nam, H, Essapen, S, Parkinson, C, McAvan, L, Swart, AM, Popoola, B, Schiavone, F, Badrock, J, Fananapazir, F, Cook, AD, Parmar, M, Kaplan, R & Ledermann, JA 2022, 'Weekly dose-dense chemotherapy in first-line epithelial ovarian, fallopian tube, or primary peritoneal cancer treatment (ICON8): overall survival results from an open-label, randomised, controlled, phase 3 trial', The Lancet Oncology, vol. 23, no. 7, pp. 919-930. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1470-2045(22)00283-2

Manchanda, R, Oxley, S, Ghaem-Maghami, S & Sundar, S 2021, 'COVID-19 and the impact on gynecologic cancer care', International Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics, vol. 155, no. S1, pp. 94-101. https://doi.org/10.1002/ijgo.13868

MAPPING Study Group 2021, 'Diagnostic accuracy of FEC-PET/CT, FDG-PET/CT, and diffusion-weighted MRI in detection of nodal metastases in surgically treated endometrial and cervical carcinoma', Clinical Cancer Research, vol. 27, no. 23, pp. 6457-6466. https://doi.org/10.1158/1078-0432.CCR-21-1834

The Cardiothoracic Interdisciplinary Research Network and COVIDSurg Collaborative & Sundar, S 2021, 'Early outcomes and complications following cardiac surgery in patients testing positive for coronavirus disease 2019: an international cohort study', The Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, vol. 162, no. 2, pp. e355-e372. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtcvs.2021.03.091

COVIDSurg Collaborative & Sundar, S 2021, 'Effect of COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns on planned cancer surgery for 15 tumour types in 61 countries: an international, prospective, cohort study', The Lancet, vol. 22, no. 11, pp. 1507-1517. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1470-2045(21)00493-9

Ewies, AAA, Ahmed, I, Al-Azzawi, F, Pitkin, J, Gupta, P, Persic, M, Sahu, B, El-Ghobashy, A, Barraclough, L, Woodman, J, Babrah, J, Bowden, S, Stocken, D, Billingham, L, Sundar, S & Rea, D 2021, 'Folic acid supplementation in postmenopausal women with hot flushes: phase III randomised double-blind placebo-controlled trial', BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics & Gynaecology. https://doi.org/10.1111/1471-0528.16739

GlobalSurg Collaborative and National Institute for Health Research Global Health Research Unit on Global Surgery 2021, 'Global variation in postoperative mortality and complications after cancer surgery: a multicentre, prospective cohort study in 82 countries', The Lancet, vol. 397, no. 10272, pp. 387-397. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(21)00001-5

Comment/debate

Taylor, A, Sundar, SS, Bowen, R, Clayton, R, Coleridge, S, Fotopoulou, C, Ghaem-Maghami, S, Ledermann, J, Manchanda, R, Maxwell, H, Michael, A, Miles, T, Nicum, S, Nordin, A, Ramsay, B, Rundle, S, Williams, S, Wood, NJ, Yiannakis, D & Morrison, J 2022, 'British Gynaecological Cancer Society recommendations for women with gynecological cancer who received non-standard care during the COVID-19 pandemic', Obstetrical and Gynecological Survey, vol. 77, no. 3, pp. 156-157. https://doi.org/10.1097/01.ogx.0000822432.56370.10

Wood, NJ, Dobbs, S, Tierney, G, Maxwell-Armstrong, C & Sundar, SS 2022, 'How do we deliver safe bowel resection in ovarian cancer cytoreductive surgery?', International Journal of Gynecological Cancer. https://doi.org/10.1136/ijgc-2022-003470

Letter

COVIDSurg Collaborative, Nepogodiev, D, Abbott, TEF, Ademuyiwa, AO, AlAmeer, E, Bankhead-Kendall, BK, Biccard, BM, Chakrabortee, S, Chaudhry, D, Edwards, JG, El-Boghdadly, K, Ghosh, D, Glasbey, JC, Gujjuri, RR, Harrison, EM, Jones, CS, Kaafarani, HMA, Kamarajah, SK, Kolias, AG, Lawani, I, Li, E, Mann, H, Marson, E, Martin, J, Mclean, KA, Minaya-Bravo, A, Moore, R, Ntirenganya, F, Omar, OM, Pockney, P, Ramos-De la Medina, A, Shaw, R, Simões, JFF, Smart, NJ, Sundar, S, Tabiri, S, Taylor, EH, Venn, ML & Bhangu, A 2022, 'Projecting COVID-19 disruption to elective surgery', The Lancet, vol. 399, no. 10321, pp. 233-234. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(21)02836-1

Review article

Woopen, H, Sehouli, J, Davis, A, Lee, YC, Cohen, PA, Ferrero, A, Gleeson, N, Jhingran, A, Kajimoto, Y, Mayadev, J, Barretina-Ginesta, MP, Sundar, S, Suzuki, N, van Dorst, E & Joly, F 2022, 'GCIG-Consensus guideline for long-term survivorship in gynecologic cancer: a position paper from the gynecologic cancer Intergroup (GCIG) symptom benefit committee', Cancer Treatment Reviews, vol. 107, 102396. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ctrv.2022.102396

Sundar, S, Manchanda, R, Gourley, C, George, A, Wallace, A, Balega, J, Williams, S, Wallis, Y, Edmondson, R, Nicum, S, Frost, J, Attygalle, A, Fotopoulou, C, Bowen, R, Bell, D, Gajjar, K, Ramsay, B, Wood, NJ, Ghaem-Maghami, S, Miles, T & Ganesan, R 2021, 'British Gynaecological Cancer Society/British Association of Gynaecological Pathology consensus for germline and tumor testing for BRCA1/2 variants in ovarian cancer in the United Kingdom', International Journal of Gynecological Cancer, vol. 31, no. 2, pp. 272-278. https://doi.org/10.1136/ijgc-2020-002112

View all publications in research portal

Expertise

Ovarian Cancer

Patient reported outcomes