{"entity":{"id":"rebecca-fitzgerald","kind":"person","name":"Rebecca C. Fitzgerald","aka":[],"tldr":"Invented the Cytosponge, a swallowable sponge-on-a-string that finds Barrett's oesophagus without endoscopy.","summary":"Rebecca Fitzgerald developed the Cytosponge-TFF3 test and led the BEST3 trial in 13,000 patients showing it detects ten times more Barrett's oesophagus than usual care in people with reflux, which is now being rolled out in NHS pilots to catch oesophageal cancer early. She also led the OCCAMS genomic study of oesophageal adenocarcinoma and directs Cambridge's Early Cancer Institute.","asOf":"2026-09-10","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebecca_Fitzgerald","links":[{"label":"PubMed","url":"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=Fitzgerald%20RC%5BAuthor%5D%20Cytosponge%20Barrett"}],"tags":["early-detection","esophageal","uk"],"related":[],"cancers":["esophageal"],"sections":[],"technologies":["mced"],"targets":[],"drugs":[],"companies":[],"institutions":["cruk-cambridge-centre","cruk"],"pathways":[],"terms":[],"trials":[],"people":[],"bottlenecks":[],"keyPapers":[],"journals":["nature-genetics"],"dependsOn":[],"notes":[],"role":"Director, Early Cancer Institute, University of Cambridge; Professor of Cancer Prevention","institutionId":"cruk-cambridge-centre","specialisms":["Oesophageal cancer early detection","Barrett's oesophagus","Non-endoscopic sampling","Cancer prevention"],"profiles":[{"label":"PubMed","url":"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=Fitzgerald%20RC%5BAuthor%5D%20Cytosponge%20Barrett"}],"papers":[{"title":"Cytosponge-trefoil factor 3 versus usual care to identify Barrett's oesophagus in a primary care setting: a multicentre, pragmatic, randomised controlled trial (BEST3)","journal":"Lancet","year":2020,"doi":"10.1016/S0140-6736(20)31099-0"},{"title":"Ordering of mutations in preinvasive disease stages of esophageal carcinogenesis","journal":"Nature Genetics","year":2014,"doi":"10.1038/ng.3013"}],"orcid":"0000-0002-3434-3568"},"route":"/people/rebecca-fitzgerald/","neighbours":{"cancer":[{"id":"esophageal","kind":"cancer","name":"Oesophageal cancer","route":"/cancers/esophageal/"}],"technology":[{"id":"mced","kind":"technology","name":"Multi-cancer early detection (MCED)","route":"/technologies/mced/"}],"institution":[{"id":"cruk","kind":"institution","name":"Cancer Research UK","route":"/institutions/cruk/"},{"id":"cruk-cambridge-centre","kind":"institution","name":"Cancer Research UK Cambridge Centre / CRUK Cambridge Institute","route":"/institutions/cruk-cambridge-centre/"}],"journal":[{"id":"nature-genetics","kind":"journal","name":"Nature Genetics","route":"/journals/nature-genetics/"}]}}