A team of international scientists has outlined key recommendations for a global standard for scanning biomarkers in cancer - to bridge the gap between research and the clinic, according to a new paper published in Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology* today (Tuesday).
Scans have transformed the way that doctors treat cancer patients and are integral to most key treatment decisions - including CT, MRI and PET scans.
But they are more than just a photograph or snap shot in time. They are a non-invasive way of getting a 3D perspective on cancer and provide dynamic information on diagnosis, staging, and decision-making during treatment - and are also used to target treatment accurately.
Many new types of scanning techniques are developed every year, including finding new biomarkers to measure what's going inside the body.
But not many end up reaching patients. This may be because the research has not yet shown them to be reliable or cost effective.
To get more tests from bench to bedside, 78 experts from Europe and North America, who specialise in imaging techniques, have identified the difficulties getting tests adopted in the clinic and set out 14 recommendations.
These include recommendations for grant submissions, for making sure results are reproducible across laboratories, for comparing scans with other tests such as liquid biopsy, and ensuring that techniques are cost effective.
For example, trials for antiangiogenics - drugs that "starve" tumours by disrupting blood vessels bringing oxygen and nutrients - have shown great promise. Advanced scanning can detect when these drugs are working in patients. But at the moment, methodologies vary greatly across hospitals and this stops these techniques being widely used in the clinic.
If all machines from different manufacturers are calibrated in the same way across different hospitals, larger clinical trials could be more easily set up to produce more powerful evidence to show if new scanning techniques are effective.
Dr James O'Connor, Cancer Research UK scientist and lead author at the University of Manchester, said: "Scans have helped advance the understanding of how cancer behaves. They have also transformed how we treat patients with cancer every day. They have shown great promise for monitoring the effects of new drugs and other treatments as they undergo development.
"If these recommendations raise the bar in imaging research, we can expect scans to play a much greater role in personalised medicine and to further improve the lives of patients with cancer having cutting edge therapies."
Jamie Meredith, Cancer Research UK's Head of Therapeutic Discovery Funding, said: "We want to make sure that the research we fund makes it to patients. An internationally agreed approach to accelerate the development and clinical use of imaging technology, could make us far more effective at diagnosing and tracking the disease.
"This is an excellent example of how the CRUK-EPSRC Cancer Imaging Centres are influencing best practice in the field."
Yan Liu, EORTC's Clinical Leader for the Medical and TRI Department said: "Academic research can play a critical role in ensuring fundamental research and technological innovation reach patients. This collaboration is a great example of how organisations can bring expertise together to identify and resolve issues in getting the imaging biomarkers introduced into clinical practice to make a bigger impact on people's lives."
###
For media enquiries contact Stephanie McClellan in the Cancer Research UK press office on 020 3469 5314 or, out of hours, on 07050 264 059.
Notes to editor:
* O'Connor et al. Imaging biomarker roadmap for cancer studies. Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology
CRUK-EPSRC Cancer Imaging Centres http://www.cam-man-cic.ac.uk/
EORTC (European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer)
This review was conducted by EORTC and funded by Cancer Research UK, Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and supported by the Innovative Medicines Initiative Joint Undertaking (http://www.imi.europa.eu) under grant agreement number 115151 - QuIC-ConCePT..
About Cancer Research UK
- Cancer Research UK is the world's leading cancer charity dedicated to saving lives through research.
- Cancer Research UK's pioneering work into the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer has helped save millions of lives.
- Cancer Research UK receives no government funding for its life-saving research. Every step it makes towards beating cancer relies on every pound donated.
- Cancer Research UK has been at the heart of the progress that has already seen survival in the UK double in the last forty years.
- Today, 2 in 4 people survive their cancer for at least 10 years. Cancer Research UK's ambition is to accelerate progress so that by 2034, 3 in 4 people will survive their cancer for at least 10 years.
- Cancer Research UK supports research into all aspects of cancer through the work of over 4,000 scientists, doctors and nurses.
- Together with its partners and supporters, Cancer Research UK's vision is to bring forward the day when all cancers are cured.
For further information about Cancer Research UK's work or to find out how to support the charity, please call 0300 123 1022 or visit http://www.cancerresearchuk.org. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.
Journal
Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology