Dr Garth Funston, BSc MB BChir PhD

Profile

I am a GP and Clinical Senior Lecturer in Primary Care Cancer Research at the Wolfson Institute of Population Health. My work spans multiple areas of cancer research, but I have a particular interest in early cancer detection. I have expertise in the analysis of large healthcare datasets, diagnostic test evaluation and the development and validation of diagnostic prediction models. 

I currently sit on the Editorial Board of the British Journal of General Practice and the NICE Suspected Cancer Quality Standards Update Committee.

I undertook my clinical training at the University’s of St Andrews and Cambridge followed by clinical academic training posts (Academic Foundation Programme and NIHR Academic Clinical Fellowship) in Manchester. In 2021 I completed a Cancer Research UK funded PhD at the University of Cambridge, which focussed on the detection of ovarian cancer in primary care. I was lead author on the Royal College of General Practitioners Paper of the Year for Clinical Research (2021) and have been awarded the prestigious World Ovarian Cancer Coalition Transformational Research Prize.

Research

Research Interests:

My research primarily focuses on early cancer detection, but I also have research interests in health inequalities and cancer survivorship. I currently work on a portfolio of studies funded by the NIHR, Cancer Research UK and Prostate Cancer Research.

Publications

The Performance of HE4 Alone and in Combination with CA125 for the Detection of Ovarian Cancer in an Enriched Primary Care Population. Barr CE, Funston G et al. Cancers 2022; 14:2124 doi.org/10.3390/cancers14092124

Could Ovarian Cancer Prediction Models Improve the Triage of Symptomatic Women in Primary Care? A Modelling Study Using Routinely Collected Data. Funston G et al. Cancers 2021; 13:2886 
doi.org/10.3390/cancers13122886

CA125 test result, test-to-diagnosis interval and stage in ovarian cancer: a cohort study using electronic health records. Funston G et al. BJGP 2021; 71:e465-e472 doi.org/10.3399/BJGP.2020.0859

Associations between breast cancer survivorship and adverse mental health outcomes: a matched population-based cohort study in the United Kingdom. Carreira H, Williams R, Funston G et al. PLOS Medicine 2021; 18:e1003504 
doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1003504

The diagnostic performance of CA125 for the detection of ovarian and non-ovarian cancer in primary care: a population-based cohort study. Funston G et al. PLOS Medicine 2020; 17:e1003295 
doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1003295