Biological Magnetic Resonance Imaging for Radiotherapy Adaption in Lung Cancer

Project Outline

Lung cancer affects more than 40,000 people each year in the UK. Radiotherapy is often used to treat lung cancer, especially non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), which make up around 87% of all lung cancers. Unfortunately, 5-year survival rates for lung cancer are very poor (around 20% at 5-years) and more research into identifying methods to improve treatment are urgently needed. Cancer-induced changes in the biology of the tumour microenvironment, including hypoxia, cell density, and vascularity contribute to the poor patient outcomes. Imaging methods for measuring such properties could enable personalised treatment adaption based on tumour biology, by targeting resistant parts of disease and reducing toxicity through radiotherapy-dose sparing.

The Christie is home to two major advanced radiotherapy systems – the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-linear accelerator (MR Linac) and a proton beam therapy (PBT) facility. Recently, our team have developed quantitative biological imaging techniques on multiple MRI systems, including the MR Linac, permitting 3D mapping and measurement of changes in tumour biology, during radiotherapy. We have shown that we can measure radiotherapy-induced changes in tumour hypoxia – a known negative prognostic indicator and factor affecting radiosensitivity – using a technique known as oxygen-enhanced MRI.

In this imaging-physics project, quantitative MRI techniques will be developed for imaging lung tumours and lung parenchyma to generate image maps of tumour biology and assess dynamic changes in a range of imaging biomarkers during treatment. Furthermore, biological imaging will be applied to surrounding lung tissue to identify radiotherapy-induced changes that may relate to acute and chronic toxicity. Together, imaging biomarkers of tumour resistance and normal-tissue toxicity will be incorporated into biology-guided adaptive radiotherapy planning studies to assess feasibility of radiotherapy-dose-escalation to the tumour and radiotherapy dose-de-escalation to healthy tissue – with the hope of improving local control, with resultant impact on survival, and reducing treatment-related side effects.

Applications for this project are now open. Please complete your application on The University of Manchester website.