Sheffield Ocular Oncology Service | A Centre for Excellence in Adult Eye Cancer since 1987
Sheffield Teaching Hospitals 
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Telephone 0114 271 2029 or 0114 226 1341
Dr Sarah Danson - Oncologist
Dr Sarah Danson, Oncologist
Sarah was a Specialist Registrar in Medical Oncology and a Cancer Research UK Clinical Research Fellow in Pharmacology at the Christie Hospital, Manchester before moving to Sheffield in 2006. She is now a Reader in Medical Oncology at the University of Sheffield and an Honorary Consultant in Medical Oncology at Sheffield Teaching Hospital NHS Trust.

Sarah's interests are in melanoma, lung cancer and the early clinical assessment of new anticancer agents. Sheffield Experimental Cancer Medicine Centre aims to expand its early clinical trial portfolio to give patients a greater access to new cancer drugs and Sarah is Co-Lead for the Centre. She is also an invited member of the Cancer Research UK New Agents Committee which reviews new drugs for a variety of cancers and approves clinical trials with these. She is an elected member of the NCRI Melanoma Clinical Studies Group which manages the national portfolio of clinical trials in skin and eye melanomas. Sarah is the Founder and Chair of the Sheffield Melanoma Research Group which has obtained funding for research for several collaborative projects, looking at the genetics and epidemiology of cutaneous melanoma, and the genes involved in the development of eye melanoma metastases.

Sarah is past Chair (2006-2014) of the Weston Park Hospital Rare Tumour Group which co-ordinates clinical research in rarer cancers, including eye melanoma. We have been commended by the National Cancer Research Network on our trial portfolio and accrual into such studies. Sarah supervises PhD students looking at early detection of melanoma, the ways in which melanoma cancer cells work and the support needs of patients with melanoma. She has published over 50 articles in peer-reviewed journals and her work has been quoted by others over 1500 times.

Sarah works closely with Dr Ernie Marshall (Liverpool), Dr Paul Nathan (Mount Vernon) and Professor Christian Ottensmeier (Southampton) to provide care to patients with eye melanoma in whom disease has spread (metastasised). For example, Sarah enrolled patients into the pivotal trial of ipilimumab which has led to a change in the standard of care for all types of melanoma. Sheffield was also top recruiter to the recent SUAVE study of dacarbazine versus sunitinib in metastatic eye melanoma with other clinical centres referring patients to Sheffield for consideration of this treatment.

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Sarah Danson is an Oncologist who specialises in medical treatment of metastatic uveal (eye) melanoma.
She is based at Sheffield's Weston Park Hospital.
Current treatment options:

1st line Ipilimumab (CTLA4) immunotherapy or dacarbazine chemotherapy or clinical trial (top recruiters to SUAVE; currently referring elsewhere for the SUMIT study; next trial due to open locally in early 2015)

2nd line ipilimumab or carbo-taxol chemotherapy or PD1 targeting immunotherapy
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'I was extremely apprehensive but it was nothing like I feared. The care I received in Sheffield was first class. The team are all dedicated, caring professionals who left me feeling I could not have been treated better anywhere.'

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Anthony Powell