From weeks to two hours: the brain tumour test five NHS centres are now trialling
What happened
NHS England has started a pilot of a test that can tell doctors what type of brain tumour someone has in about two hours. At the moment, that answer can take weeks. The test was developed by clinicians and researchers at the University of Nottingham and Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust. It was announced on 25 September 2026 and is being described as a world first. Here is how it works. During an operation or a biopsy, the surgeon takes a very small piece of the tumour. Instead of sending it away to a lab and waiting, the team reads the DNA of that sample on the spot, using a sequencing machine roughly the size of a shoebox. Software compares the pattern it finds against known tumour types. When surgeons need the answer urgently, it can come back inside two hours - while the patient is still in theatre. Otherwise the full diagnosis arrives in days rather than weeks. Five specialist NHS centres are taking part in the pilot: - Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust - University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust - Great Ormond Street Hospital NHS Foundation Trust - King's College Hospital - Newcastle Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust There are plans to extend it to centres in Bristol, Oxford, Leeds and Manchester. Professor Frankie Swords, NHS medical director, said the test "has the potential to completely transform how we diagnose brain tumours, with results reaching patients in a matter of days rather than weeks". Stuart Smith, a consultant neurosurgeon at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, put it more plainly. "The ability to have detailed information about the tumour at the point when decisions are being made in the operating theatre is game-changing," he said.
Why this matters
It is easy to hear "faster test" and think this is only about convenience. It is not. There are more than 100 different types of brain tumour, according to the charity Brain Tumour Research. They behave very differently. Some grow slowly and may need watching rather than treating. Some need chemotherapy, some radiotherapy, and some respond to one drug and not another. Until you know which type it is, you cannot choose the right treatment. So the wait is not empty time - it is time when treatment has not started yet. That wait can be long. Dr Simon Newman, chief scientific officer at The Brain Tumour Charity, said more than a quarter of patients have to wait over a month after surgery to find out which type of brain tumour they have. Steve Palmer, a 55-year-old patient who had the test, described the difference simply: "Getting that definite result quickly took away what could have been weeks of anxiety." The scale is bigger than most people realise. Brain Tumour Research says nearly 13,000 people in the UK are diagnosed with a brain tumour each year - about 35 every day. In England, someone diagnosed with a brain tumour is four times less likely to survive five years than the average across all cancers. Nearly 40% are first diagnosed in emergency care. One more reason speed counts: many new treatments are only available through clinical trials, and trials usually accept people with a specific tumour type. If the diagnosis takes six weeks, that window may have closed.
What the evidence actually says
This is not a press release with nothing behind it. The underlying method has been published and reviewed by other scientists. The test is based on an approach called ROBIN. It was published in the journal Neuro-Oncology on 20 May 2025, led by teams at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust and the University of Nottingham, working with the German Cancer Research Centre in Heidelberg and University College London Hospitals. The study reported a turnaround time of under two hours for classifying a tumour during surgery, and a complete diagnosis within 24 hours. Now the important detail. The method was tested on 50 operations as they happened. In those cases, its answer matched the final, full laboratory diagnosis 90% of the time. A further 30 samples were tested afterwards to check the method. So: 90%, not 100%. And 50 cases is a promising study, not a decade of data. Three things follow from that: First, this does not replace normal pathology. The full laboratory work still happens. The rapid test gives surgeons a very good early answer, and the complete picture is confirmed afterwards. Second, nobody has yet shown that this test makes people live longer. What has been shown is that it gives the answer much faster, which lets treatment and trial decisions happen sooner. That is reasonable to expect to help - but "expected to help" is not the same as "proven to extend life". Third, this is a pilot at five centres, not standard care across England. Do not assume it is available at your hospital. That is genuinely why it is being run as a pilot: to check it works safely and consistently in everyday NHS practice before it is used everywhere.
Qurexa perspective
We are a healthcare logistics and pharmacy delivery service in Lincolnshire, so we are not neurosurgeons and we will not pretend otherwise. What we do see is what happens after a diagnosis like this. Treatment for a brain tumour often means a long stretch of appointments at a specialist centre that is not local - and for many Lincolnshire families, that means real distances. It usually also means a medication routine that changes, sometimes several times: anti-seizure medicines, steroids, anti-sickness tablets, painkillers. That is where the practical problems show up. Someone is travelling for treatment, exhausted, and a prescription needs collecting from a pharmacy open at the wrong times. Delivering prescriptions and helping people keep on top of a changing routine is the bit we can genuinely help with - mentioned here only because it sits right next to this news, not because it has anything to do with the test itself.
Practical advice
If this news is relevant to you or your family, here is what is actually useful to do. **If you are waiting for a brain tumour diagnosis** Ask your team directly whether genomic testing is part of your pathway, and when you should expect a result. It is a fair question and a normal one to ask. Ask about clinical trials at the same time - who decides whether you are eligible, and whether the diagnosis timing affects it. The Brain Tumour Charity and Brain Tumour Research both run support lines that can help you work out what to ask. Take someone with you to appointments if you can. Two people remember more than one, especially when the news is hard. **If you are worried about symptoms** Most headaches are not brain tumours. That is true, and worth saying. But the NHS advises seeing a GP about symptoms including headaches that are new and persistent or worse in the morning, seizures or fits, ongoing nausea or vomiting, changes to your vision or speech, weakness on one side, or changes in personality and memory. Write down what you have noticed and when it started. A short, clear note - dates, what happened, how often - helps a GP far more than trying to recall it in a ten-minute appointment. It takes five minutes and costs you nothing. If symptoms come on suddenly or severely, do not wait for a routine appointment. Call 111, or 999 for something like a first seizure. **What not to do** Do not ring your local hospital asking to be moved to one of the five pilot centres. Referrals go through your specialist team. And do not read the two-hour figure as a promise about your own case. For now it applies during surgery, at specific centres.
What to know
NHS England announced on 25 September 2026 that it is piloting a rapid genomic test that can identify a brain tumour's type in about two hours during surgery, instead of the weeks a diagnosis can currently take. It was developed at the University of Nottingham and Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, reads the DNA of a small tumour sample using a compact sequencing machine, and is running at five specialist centres, with Bristol, Oxford, Leeds and Manchester planned next. The published research behind it, in Neuro-Oncology in May 2025, reported results in under two hours and 90% agreement with the full laboratory diagnosis across 50 live operations. It does not replace standard pathology, and it has not been shown to help people live longer - what it clearly does is cut the wait. Why that wait matters: there are more than 100 types of brain tumour, treatment depends on which one you have, and more than a quarter of patients currently wait over a month after surgery to find out. If this affects your family, the most useful thing you can do is ask your specialist team two questions: when will my tumour type be confirmed, and am I eligible for any clinical trials? Sources: Brain Tumour Research, 'NHS pilots rapid genomic testing to "transform" brain tumour diagnosis', 25 September 2026, https://braintumourresearch.org/blogs/latest-news/nhs-pilots-rapid-genomic-testing-to-transform-brain-tumour-diagnosis; EMJ Reviews, 'New Rapid Brain Tumour Test Cuts Diagnosis Time to Hours', 25 September 2026, https://www.emjreviews.com/general-healthcare/news/new-rapid-brain-tumour-test-cuts-diagnosis-time-to-hours/; Neuro-Oncology, 'ROBIN: A unified nanopore-based assay integrating intraoperative methylome classification and next-day comprehensive profiling for ultra-rapid tumor diagnosis', 20 May 2025, https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12448888/; Brain Tumour Research, 'Stark facts', https://www.braintumourresearch.org/campaigning/stark-facts; NHS, 'Brain tumours', https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/brain-tumours/ This article is for general information and does not replace advice from a doctor, pharmacist or other qualified healthcare professional. If you are worried about symptoms, or about treatment you are receiving, speak to your GP or your specialist team.
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