Scientists at Radboudumc in Nijmegen have developed a method that allows them to see almost immediately whether an injection against liver cancer is in the right place and whether they need to adjust the location and dosage as they go along. Previously, practitioners could only see this on a scan a week later. The new method cannot yet be applied immediately, further studies are needed for this.
Patients with tumors in the liver are sometimes given radioactive beads to irradiate the cancer injected through a catheter. Those globules have to end up with the tumors themselves. According to the hospital, it is now the first time that the path of these spheres can be followed live. Researchers injected the spheres into six patients who were already in an MRI scanner and could immediately check whether the spheres reached the right place. “The procedure appears to be safe and feasible,” according to the UMC.
“We inject the radiation spheres in four fractions. We make an image for each fraction with the MRI scanner. The recording takes three minutes and the elaboration of the measurement takes ten minutes. So within fifteen minutes per fraction you have clarity where the spheres are located.” , explains researcher and group leader Frank Nijsen of Radboudumc.
customization
During the MRI measurements, the researchers also saw that 80 percent of all detected tumors were not yet full of globules. “You would therefore want to administer more globules than usual in those tumors, so that the treatment improves,” says PhD student Joey Roosen. “It is a balance between filling tumors with globules on the one hand for an optimal treatment result, and on the other hand sufficiently sparing the healthy liver and thus prevent side effects. That is custom work, where MRI can help.”
The researchers hope to eventually make the procedure suitable for every hospital in the world that has an MRI scanner.
By: ANP