Surrogate questions imaging can answer about cancer

A Professor who is investigating how modern body imaging techniques can be adapted to answer new questions -  such as the anti-cancer properties of fish oils and green tea, or establishing cause of death in forensic investigation -  is to give a free public lecture at the University of Leicester.

Professor Bruno Morgan, of the Department of Cancer Studies and Molecular Medicine, will discuss: 'Cancer and death: are we asking the right questions?'  The lecture takes place on Tuesday 8 February in Lecture Theatre 1, Ken Edwards Building, University of Leicester.

His lecture will focus on measures used to determine success in cancer treatment, for both established therapies and novel approaches, such as the anti-cancer properties of fish oils and green tea, and whether these imaging techniques can provide answers to questions that are too difficult to ask in clinical practice.

Professor Bruno said: "Most patients entering clinical cancer trials are fairly clear about what they want; be it increased survival, improved quality of life, or reduced pain.  Unfortunately these goals may be difficult to measure.  Survival will hopefully be a long time and may be altered by confounding factors such as subsequent treatments or environment.

"Studies of clinical treatments therefore often use surrogate measurements for the real goals. In cancer research, instead of measuring survival times for treatment by a novel drug, we may measure whether the tumour size is reduced.  This is a quick measurement and we assume that any reduction equates to improved survival. Unfortunately this is not always the case."

Professor Morgan will also discuss the use of imaging to investigate cause of death.  He will assess whether, in cases where cause of death is not clear, imaging can safely identify cases that do not require invasive autopsy.

He added: "This lecture will discuss how research collaborations within the University of Leicester and hospitals in Leicester are trying to establish surrogate questions that imaging can answer, in order to predict the answers to the real questions that may be too difficult to ask."

Professor Morgan has been involved in the early use of specialised MR imaging techniques to monitor the effect of novel cancer treatments, such as anti angiogenesis agents.  He is now incorporating these techniques to study the anti cancer properties of naturally occurring compounds such as fish oils and green tea. 

He has also worked as the lead radiologist with the University of Leicester's East Midlands Forensic Pathology Unit who are pioneering the use of CT imaging in the investigation of death.  The EMFPU is now a leader in research in this field, and have advised the Departments of Health and Justice in the UK and Interpol on the use of imaging in forensic investigation.