New scan to help cancer treatment

Patients with the same form of cancer that Apple supremo Steve Jobs suffered from could benefit from a new form of scan aimed at seeing who would respond to specialist treatment.

Scientists have developed the scan which can be used to predict which patients with advanced neuroendocrine cancers – cancers arising from hormone-producing cells, often in the lungs or gastrointestinal tract – would respond to targeted radiotherapy. Mr Jobs was diagnosed in 2003 as having a pancreatic neuroendocrine tumour which spread to the liver leading to his death last October.

The work being carried out by the Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) and The Royal Marsden Hospital is aimed at finding which patients with this form of cancer would benefit from peptide receptor targeted therapy –a type of radiotherapy which avoids damage to non-cancer cells.

In a paper published online in the journal Radiology, Dow-Mu Koh, professor Martin Leach and professor Val Lewington claim that dynamic contrast enhanced (DCE-) MRI can be used to monitor and predict response to this therapy. Prof. Leach said: “Radiopeptide therapy is an important treatment option for patients whose cancer has spread.

“This test may help doctors to make decisions about which patients should be offered this targeted therapy, and whether to stop treatment if patients aren’t responding, avoiding side effects for those who won’t benefit.”

Dr Koh said: “We were able to reliably map patients’ livers using a completely non-invasive technique.

“Importantly, this type of MRI can be carried out on standard equipment, which is already available in hospitals around the country.”

Julie Sharp, Cancer Research UK’s senior science information manager, said: “Accurately predicting patient response helps doctors to make prompt decisions about the best course of treatment for each individual and this is one of a number of studies that are showing the promise of MRI techniques in helping to achieve this aim.”