ET

ISSUE 2214 Sunday 17 June 2001

Doctors announce cancer treatment breakthrough By Lorraine Fraser, Medical Correspondent

A NEW method of viewing cancers inside the body will allow life-saving improvements in treatment of the disease, specialists will announce today.

The technique, which has been developed by a team of doctors at Mount Vernon Hospital in Middlesex and computer experts from King's College, London, provides exact data on the volume and position of tumours making it possible to target affected areas with such precision that there is no damage to healthy tissue.

Oncologists at Mount Vernon Hospital hope to start using the technique within the year on men suffering from prostate cancer. They also believe that it will prove invaluable in the treatment of cancers of the brain, head and neck.

The breakthrough came when the research team managed to combine two existing scanning methods, in order to harness the special advantages of both of them. Their new procedure involves overlaying a CT (computed tomography) scan with an MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scan.

At the moment, radiologists decide the target area for radiotherapy with the help of data from a CT scan. This gives a good idea of the location of the tumour in relation to the outside of the patient's body.

This does not, however, provide enough internal detail to judge accurately the cancer's size and shape. There is always a risk that the radiation will miss parts of the tumour or destroy healthy tissue.

The MRI scan, which detects the reaction of water molecules in tissue to a magnetic field, has the reverse problem. It provides good internal detail of the cancerous area, particularly if it is in the pelvis or brain, but gives only a poor outline of the body, making it difficult to plot the exact location of a tumour.

By combining the techniques, Dr Peter Hoskin, an oncologist at Mount Vernon, told The Telegraph, it should be possible to increase the success rate of radiotherapy in prostate cancer treatment and avoid the main side effects, such as damage to the lower bowel, which presently affects a third of men undergoing treatment for the cancer - one in 20 seriously.

Prostate cancer is diagnosed in almost 22,000 men in Britain annually and the numbers are increasing as more men are screened. About 5,000 men a year now have radiotherapy treatment, using either radiation beams directed at the prostate or brachytherapy, the insertion of fine radioactive needles into the prostate gland itself.

The new technique will add to the cost of radiotherapy but should save time and money later because patients will be spared the distress of painful side effects.

Combined scanning is unlikely to benefit patients with some common cancers such as lung, breast and cervical. It has the potential, however, to make an enormous difference to those with cancers of the nervous system, throat and larynx.

Dr Hoskin said: "Our research should allow us to mould radiation dosages to fit a tumour's shape. By avoiding damage to normal tissues we could provide patients with a safer form of treatment."

Dr Lesley Walker, the director of Cancer Information at the Cancer Research Campaign, which funded the research said: "For certain cancers, doctors often take a broad brush approach to radiotherapy because imaging techniques aren't good enough to them to plan radiotherapy on an individual basis.

"By providing enhanced images of tumours, Dr Hoskin's work allows doctors to tailor more precisely radiotherapy to the needs of the patient."

-- Anonymous, June 16, 2001

Answers

I just have always thought the cure for cancer already exists, and tptb won't let it "come out"....if you notice some of the big names that get cancer and live, and some don't......I have to wonder....I know ones thoughts and beliefs have alot to do with it, but still....

-- Anonymous, June 17, 2001