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Standard CT scan and bone scan (BS) in the NHS use harmful radiation and cannot reliably assess which patients are responding to cancer treatments. In contrast, whole body MRI (WB-MRI), which includes a special scan called diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI), does not use harmful radiation and can more accurately identify patients responding to treatment. WB-MRI can be performed across the NHS but is not currently used to measure treatment response of bone disease because there is no software to assess multiple sites of disease typically seen in these patients.
The main aim of this project is to develop, test and evaluate new computer software, based on an existing prototype, to measure treatment response of bone cancer in patients. We want to show that using our software with WB-MRI can more reliably tell doctors whether treatment is effective compared with standard CT and BS, so that expensive ineffective treatment can be stopped or replaced. We will develop a free and commercial version of the software with a commercial partner, the latter for CE marking containing enhanced tools for faster and more powerful analysis.
Principal Investigator: Prof Dow-Mu Koh
Project Staff: Manuel Gomes, Nick Swart
Partners/Collaborators: Dr Matthew Blackledge, Professor Martin Leach, Professor Johann S de Bono, Prof Emma Hall
Funder: NIHR
Start Date: 2017
Duration: 3 years
Contact: m.gomes@ucl.ac.uk