New imaging methods for detecting brain tumour response to treatment

肿瘤类型相似的患者对同一种疗法的反应往往明显不同。因此，新疗法的开发将受益于成像方法的引入，该方法允许早期评估治疗反应，允许快速选择最有效的治疗，为患者带来福利，为医疗保健系统带来成本效益。对治疗的有益反应仍然主要通过肿瘤大小减小的成像测量来评估。然而，这可能需要几个星期才能显现出来。对于常见的脑肿瘤多形性胶质母细胞瘤来说，时间是至关重要的，2年后存活的机会为16%。该研究项目的目的是开发成像方法，可用于医院环境中检测脑肿瘤对治疗的早期反应。首先，通过使用一种新的磁共振（MR）方法，通过肿瘤内化学反应的变化检测对治疗的有益反应。其次，通过一种新的图像处理方法，其中通过图像整体性的变化来检测对治疗的有益反应。在这里，来自患者的MR图像被评估。放射科医生将在经验丰富的研究成像科学家的指导下进行研究。

Patients with similar tumour types frequently have markedly different responses to the sametherapy. The development of new treatments would benefit, therefore, from the introduction of imaging methods that allow an early assessment of treatment response, allowing rapid selection of the most effective treatment, with welfare benefits for the patient and cost benefits for the healthcare system. Beneficial responses to treatment are still largely assessed from imaging measurements of reductions in tumour size. However, this may take several weeks to become manifest. Time is critical in the common brain tumour, glioblastoma multiforme, where the chance of being alive after 2 years is 16%. The aim of this research project is to develop imaging methods, which could be used in a hospital setting to detect the early responses of brain tumours to therapy. Firstly, by using a novel magnetic resonance (MR) method that detects a beneficial response to treatment through changes in chemical reactions within tumours. Secondly, by a novel image processing method in which a beneficial response to treatment is detected through changes in the wholeness of images. Here, MR images from patients are assessed.A radiologist will perform the research under the guidance of an experienced research imaging scientist.