Biography
Robert Rintoul is Professor of Thoracic Oncology in the Department of Oncology, University of Cambridge and Honorary Consultant Respiratory Physician, Royal Papworth Hospital. He qualified in medicine from the University of Edinburgh having undertaken his pre-clinical training at the University of St Andrews. He subsequently trained in respiratory medicine in London and Edinburgh receiving his doctorate from the University of Edinburgh for research investigating mechanisms underlying resistance to chemotherapy in small cell lung cancer.
He was appointed consultant in respiratory medicine specialising in thoracic oncology at Royal Papworth Hospital in 2005 before moving to the University of Cambridge in 2017. Prof Rintoul is co-lead of the Thoracic Cancer Programme of the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Cancer Centre and Director of the Papworth Trials Unit Collaboration, a UKCRC registered clinical trials unit. Since 2021 he has been the clinical lead of the Clinical Advisory Group of the UK Lung Cancer Coalition. Since 2023 he has been clinical director for the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough lung cancer screening programme.
Prof Rintoul runs programmes of research in early-stage lung cancer and pleural mesothelioma. In lung cancer his work is predominantly focussed on translational clinical trials in biomarker discovery for early detection of primary and second primary lung cancer. In 2014 he founded Mesobank UK, the UK national bioresource for malignant mesothelioma (www.mesobank.com) which is also developing and characterising novel organoid models. His research is funded by NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre, Cancer Research UK, Medical Research Council and Asthma and Lung UK.
Research
Robert Rintoul studies cancers which affect the lungs. In lung cancer he is working to develop new ‘minimally invasive’ methods for earlier detection of lung cancer. Current projects are looking at whether it is possible to detect lung cancer earlier using either the breath or circulating tumour DNA in the blood. Recognising that more and more people who are cured from lung cancer are at risk of developing a second primary lung cancers, he has created a large cohort of patients who have been cured of their first lung cancer in order to try to develop new ways of identifying second primary lung cancers. In mesothelioma the cancer of the lining of the lung caused by asbestos, Professor Rintoul is developing new cell models of mesothelioma as part of Mesobank. Mesobank is the UK’s primary source of mesothelioma tissue for researchers to use to study the disease. To date Mesobank has supplied 70 research groups around the world.
Publications
Rintoul RC, Skwarski KM, Murchison JT, Wallace WA, Walker WS, Penman ID. Endobronchial and endoscopic ultrasound-guided real-time fine-needle aspiration for mediastinal staging. Eur Respir J. 2005 Mar;25(3):416-21. doi: 10.1183/09031936.05.00095404.
Herth FJ, Annema JT, Eberhardt R, Yasufuku K, Ernst A, Krasnik M, Rintoul RC. Endobronchial ultrasound with transbronchial needle aspiration for restaging the mediastinum in lung cancer. J Clin Oncol. 2008 Jul 10;26(20):3346-50. doi: 10.1200/JCO.2007.14.9229.
Annema JT, van Meerbeeck JP, Rintoul RC, Dooms C, Deschepper E, Dekkers OM, De Leyn P, Braun J, Carroll NR, Praet M, de Ryck F, Vansteenkiste J, Vermassen F, Versteegh MI, Veseliç M, Nicholson AG, Rabe KF, Tournoy KG. Mediastinoscopy vs endosonography for mediastinal nodal staging of lung cancer: a randomized trial. JAMA. 2010 Nov 24;304(20):2245-52. doi: 10.1001/jama.2010.1705.
Rintoul RC, Glover MJ, Jackson C, Hughes V, Tournoy KG, Dooms C, Annema JT, Sharples LD. Cost effectiveness of endosonography versus surgical staging in potentially resectable lung cancer: a health economics analysis of the ASTER trial from a European perspective. Thorax. 2014 Jul;69(7):679-81. doi: 10.1136/thoraxjnl-2013-204374.
Rintoul RC, Ritchie AJ, Edwards JG, Waller DA, Coonar AS, Bennett M, Lovato E, Hughes V, Fox-Rushby JA, Sharples LD; MesoVATS Collaborators. Efficacy and cost of video-assisted thoracoscopic partial pleurectomy versus talc pleurodesis in patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma (MesoVATS): an open-label, randomised, controlled trial. Lancet. 2014 Sep 20;384(9948):1118-27. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(14)60418-9.
Rintoul RC, Rassl DM, Gittins J, Marciniak SJ; MesobanK collaborators. MesobanK UK: an international mesothelioma bioresource. Thorax. 2016 Apr;71(4):380-2. doi: 10.1136/thoraxjnl-2015-207496.
Barclay ME, Lyratzopoulos G, Walter FM, Jefferies S, Peake MD, Rintoul RC. Incidence of second and higher order smoking-related primary cancers following lung cancer: a population-based cohort study. Thorax. 2019 May;74(5):466-472. doi: 10.1136/thoraxjnl-2018-212456.
Gale D, Heider K, Ruiz-Valdepenas A, Hackinger S, Perry M, Marsico G, Rundell V, Wulff J, Sharma G, Knock H, Castedo J, Cooper W, Zhao H, Smith CG, Garg S, Anand S, Howarth K, Gilligan D, Harden SV, Rassl DM, Rintoul RC*, Rosenfeld N*. Residual ctDNA after treatment predicts early relapse in patients with early-stage non-small cell lung cancer. Ann Oncol. 2022 May;33(5):500-510. doi: 10.1016/j.annonc.2022.02.007.
Obacz J, Antonio Valer J, Nibhani R, Adams TS, Schupp JC, Veale N, Lewis-Wade A, Flint J, Hogan J, Aresu G, Coonar AS, Peryt A, Biffi G, Kaminski N, Francies H, Rassl DM, Garnett MJ*, Rintoul RC*, Marciniak SJ*. Single-cell transcriptomic analysis of human pleura reveals stromal heterogeneity and informs in vitro models of mesothelioma. Eur Respir J. 2024 Jan 11:2300143. doi: 10.1183/13993003.00143-2023.
de Biase MS, Massip F, Wei TT, Giorgi FM, Stark R, Stone A, Gladwell A, O'Reilly M, Schütte D, de Santiago I, Meyer KB, Markowetz F, Ponder BAJ*, Rintoul RC*, Schwarz RF*. Smoking-associated gene expression alterations in nasal epithelium reveal immune impairment linked to lung cancer risk. Genome Med. 2024 Apr 8;16(1):54. doi: 10.1186/s13073-024-01317-4.
