Hospital patients in the North-East will be taking part in a drug trial to try to prevent an aggressive form of gullet cancer.

Britain has seen an explosion of cases of the cancer, which is linked to persistent heartburn.

The trial, funded by Cancer Research UK, will include patients at Queen Elizabeth Hospital, in Gateshead.

It will try to prove whether a combination of drugs could prevent a pre-cancerous condition that is responsible for about half of cancers of the oesophagus, or gullet.

About ten per cent of the UK population will get heartburn over the festive season.

For some long-term sufferers this is a symptom of Barrett's oesophagus, a pre-cancerous condition caused when stomach acid regularly ebbs back into the gullet, causing heartburn.

The acid causes a change to the cells which line the gullet, and can result in cancer.

It affects up to two per cent of the UK population, but the number of patients with the condition who go on to develop cancer rising rapidly.

Nationally, there are more than 7,000 cases and a similar number of deaths each year. In the last decade, the number of cases has risen by 12 per cent.

The researchers will use aspirin and a drug that prevents acid formation in the stomach called esomeprazole, to try to prevent Barrett's oesophagus.

Dr Savvas Kadis, consultant gastroenterologist at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, said: "The UK is at the epicentre of an explosion in this cancer.

"We hope these drugs will offer a simple method of preventing this particularly aggressive form."