Collaborative project with Emory University will refine groundbreaking spectroscopic MRI technology to make it easier to make use of.

Researchers at Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center on the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine will share a five-year, $3.3 million National Institutes of Health grant with Emory University to check spectroscopic MRI (sMRI) and make it easier to make use of. This advanced imaging tool may help clinicians detect and potentially eradicate glioblastoma, a particularly deadly brain tumor.

Spectroscopic MRI, which was mostly developed on the University of Miami, is a solution to probe metabolites within the brain and create maps of those metabolites. We all know that glioblastomas have a particular metabolic alteration that makes them detectable by spectroscopic MRI, uncovering hidden cancer that other techniques cannot find.”

Eric A. Mellon, M.D., Ph.D., co-leader of Sylvester’s Neurologic Cancer Site Disease Group, associate professor of radiation oncology and biomedical engineering on the Miller School, and co-principal investigator on the grant

With a five-year survival rate below 10%, glioblastoma is one among the deadliest cancers. These tumors could be particularly difficult because they’re difficult to totally locate and treat. Consequently, small remnants can seed the brain for future relapse. Spectroscopic MRI gives physicians a greater tool to see more cancer and take away it surgically or kill it with radiation therapy.

‘A Readout of What’s Actually Happening’

For Dr. Mellon, a radiation specialist, sMRI could expand his ability to offer more comprehensive therapy, boosting radiation doses to newly detected tumor sites. Even at higher doses, healthy brain tissue can withstand radiation higher than tumors can. But first, radiation oncologists must locate all of the cancer -; and sMRI may very well be the reply.

“Theoretically, spectroscopic MRI could provide a signature for each chemical within the brain, which is essentially what a surgical biopsy can do,” said Sulaiman Sheriff, a senior project manager on Sylvester’s sMRI team. “That is what spectroscopy can provide: a readout of what is actually happening within the brain.”

Still, the identical precision that makes sMRI such a robust tool to detect brain tumors also makes it difficult to deploy. The technique produces large, multi-gigabyte files that should be processed and interpreted, a serious computational effort. Consequently, only a small variety of cancer centers, like Sylvester, Emory, and Johns Hopkins, have these capabilities.

“The grant is about increasing the usability of this system so more institutions can adopt it,” said Dr. Mellon. “Acquiring and processing the info takes significant training and experience. We’re working with scanner manufacturer Siemens to simplify the method as much as possible. Ideally, manufacturers would construct it into their scanners, and teams with minimal training could just push a button.”

Improving Detection and Treatment

The research team has already made great progress, reducing processing times from hours to minutes. They’ve adopted advanced computational approaches to lower those times even further.

“We’re taking a process that was purely statistical and iterative and applying deep learning,” said Sheriff, referring to one among the important thing steps of the method, which can be probably the most time- and computationally intensive. “We will now process these files in a few minute and even seconds, getting equal results and sometimes higher.”

This work dovetails with several clinical trials Dr. Mellon and colleagues are conducting to enhance glioblastoma detection and treatment. A recent study by Sylvester, Emory, and Johns Hopkins showed that increased radiation doses, informed by sMRI, improved patient survival. The researchers plan to conduct a bigger follow-up study to validate these results.

Dr. Mellon can be enrolling patients in a clinical trial that mixes the anti-cancer drug Avastin with proton radiation, which could be more precisely focused on tumor tissue, leaving healthy cells relatively unscathed. The sMRI readouts will likely be essential to expand treatment areas and hopefully eliminate all cancer cells.

“Using the spectroscopic MRI guidance, we wish to treat as much of the disease as we will find to enhance survival,” said Dr. Mellon. “Radiation oncologists have been reluctant to use larger doses due to the potential uncomfortable side effects. But glioblastoma kills everyone it affects. We now have to push the envelope.”

Source:

Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center