New cancer imaging could show if treatment attacking disease within days

The technique has been tested on a person in the UK for the first time as part of a study

(Robert Cianflone/Getty Images)

A new scanning technique that could quickly reveal whether a cancer treatment is working has been tested on a patient in the UK or Europe of the first time.

Experts hope that the technique will doctors to identify the most appropriate treatments for a patient within days. Currently, doctors must wait for around three weeks to see if a tumour responds to medication.

Doctors used the rapid scan on a patient at the Addenbrooke's Hospital, part of Cambridge University Hospitals as part of a study into metabolic imaging.

The scan involves labelling pyruvate – which occurs when glucose is broken down – with a non-radioactive form of carbon which makes it easier to detect in an MRI scanner, and injecting it into the patient.

By scanning the patient, doctors can monitor how the cancer cells break down pyruvate to test whether the drug has effectively killed them.

The study as a whole has already involved patients in the US with a wide range of cancers.

Further research is needed to collect and analyse the study results in order to get an accurate early snapshot of how well drugs destroy tumours, according to Dr Emma Smith of Cancer Research UK.

She said: “Finding out early on whether cancer is responding to therapy could save patients months of treatment that isn't working for them.”

Professor Kevin Brindle, co-lead based at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute, said: “Each person’s cancer is different and this technique could help us tailor a patient’s treatment more quickly than before.”

Dr Ferdia Gallagher, co-lead also funded by Cancer Research UK and based at the Department of Radiology at the University of Cambridge, said: “It’s fantastic that we can now try this technique in patients. We hope this will progress the way cancer treatment is given and make therapy more effective for patients in the future.

"This new technique could potentially mean that doctors will find out much more quickly if a treatment is working for their patient instead of waiting to see if a tumour shrinks.”