Dr Saifee Abbas Mullamitha

Professional statement

Dr Saifee Mullamitha is a leading consultant medical oncologist at The Christie Hospital in Manchester: one of the largest cancer treatment centres of its type in Europe. He has a specialist interest in the management of early and advanced colorectal cancer. He advises on many aspects or facets of systemic treatment especially on the suitability of immunotherapy. Amongst other commitments he is a part of the a) Peritoneal Tumour Service and multidisciplinary team with a special interest in management of colorectal peritoneal malignancies. This looks at the role and suitability (patient selection) of cytoreductive surgery and HIPEC (so called hot chemotherapy), and b) Member of the regional Specialist HPB (Liver) MDT for selection of optimum liver directed therapies. He closely works with other providers of specialist cancer care such as pelvic surgeons, interventional radiologists and users of specialist radiotherapy techniques such as stereotactic ablative radiotherapy (SABR).

The aim of this multi-disciplinary approach is to constantly strive in identificaton of those patients who might be possible candidates for curative surgery or other ablative treatments. There will be however patients in whom such approaches might not work and this has to be honestly and sensitively discussed and care focused to maximise life expectancy. 

He is a principal investigator, Co-investigator and Chief Investigator for clinical trials looking at increasing survival and cure rates for patients with early and advanced bowel cancer. Personalised treatments including using of established biomarkers but also other techniques (liquid biopsies for circulating tumour DNA) to identify rarer mutations that may lend itself to molecular targeted treatments. Dr Mullamitha provides a second opinion service for patients seeking to interrogate their ongoing management. 

In 1998, Dr Mullamitha completed his postgraduate studies at the University of Bombay in India and then moved to the UK to complete his medical oncology training at The Christie Hospital.

At The Christie Hospital, more than a decade ago, Dr Mullamitha set up the 30-day Systemic Anti-Cancer Therapy Dataset (SACT) mortality database and infrastructure. This is to continuously make highly complex treatments as safe as possible by critically looking at clinical care pathways and actual patient management.  Dr Saifee Mullamitha is a consultant appraiser for consultant peers and more junior colleagues in the trust.

He is also the training program director for Northwest Medical Oncology leading the program designed to develop the next generation of medical oncologists for the NHS. He is an invited fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in London, and also has been an examiner for the South Manchester University Hospitals. Dr Mullamitha is dedicated to the teaching and training of medical students as well as oncology trainees.