Cuthbert was a fine specimen
Pathologist Cuthbert Dukes was instrumental in setting up the world's first Polyposis Register which monitors and treats successive generations of families carrying a group of cancer carrying genes collectively known as Familial Adenomatous Polyposis.
St Mark's pioneering work started in the early 1900s when surgeon turned detective Percy Lockhart-Mummery suspected a cross generational killer was stalking his patients.
Lockhart-Mummery had begun noticing a link between polyps found inside the large intestine of some colorectal cancer patients and a high incidence of cancer in their families' histories.
He began keeping a patient register of individuals with multiple polyps starting with 'Patient One,' a 31-year-old woman whose extended family included eight deaths attributed to bowel cancer. A pattern emerged and Lockhart-Mummery enlisted the help of Cuthbert to take a closer look.
The pair began putting together the missing pieces of the jigsaw and established the Polyposis Registry in 1924.
The registry keeps track of successive generations of families carrying the inherited condition of cancer carrying polyps.
The offspring of a gene carrier has a 50% chance of inheriting the condition themselves and the risk of cancer increases dramatically with age from 7% in 21-year-olds to 93% in the over 50s. In response, St Mark's surgeons pioneered two procedures still in use today. One involves removing the large intestine and rectum and replacing it with a 'pouch' created from the small intestine.
Subsequent investigations by Dukes and successive pathologists revealed several types of polyposis.
The registry subsequently gained international renown for its ground-breaking work and most of the current guidelines are thanks to the extensive research and meticulous