New MRI method to test effectiveness of baking soda against breast cancer

A University of Arizona study that looks to improve the way doctors can measure the effectiveness of drinking baking soda to fight breast cancer has received a $2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health.

The grant will be used to help refine a new magnetic resonance imaging method for measuring pH, or acid content, of a tumor that has been discovered in a patient but not yet treated. By measuring the acid content of the tumor, doctors would be able to monitor the effectiveness of personalized treatments such as baking soda on the tumor and other normal tissue, and even predict the effectiveness of chemotherapies before the patient starts the medication.

Drinking baking soda has been proven to reduce or eliminate the spread of breast cancer to the lungs, brain and bone, but too much baking soda can also damage normal organs.

"In other words, this test is designed to lead to personalized medicine for cancer patients, by optimizing the therapy to each individual," said Mark "Marty" Pagel, PhD, University of Arizona associate professor of biomedical engineering and lead researcher on the project.

Just as people feel the burn from lactic acid produced in their muscles during rigorous exercise, tumors also produce lactic acid when they are actively growing, Pagel says. This acid destroys surrounding tissue, which allows the tumor to grow, invade surrounding areas, and metastasize to other organs in the body. "The acid also provides resistance to common chemotherapies," Pagel said.

"Measuring the pH in a tumor is essential, because some drugs only work at the right pH," said Jennifer Barton, PhD, professor and head of the UA department of biomedical engineering. "Patients can actually change their body's pH to make their cancer drugs more effective -- it can be as simple as drinking baking soda -- but this process has to be carefully monitored."

The goal of the research is to prove that this unique and innovative MRI tumor measurement technique will help improve, and in some cases save, the lives of women with breast cancer.

The study is being conducted in collaboration with Ian Robey, Ph.D., assistant professor of research at The University of Arizona Cancer Center, and clinical collaborators Alison Stopeck, MD, Setsuko Chambers, MD and Dr. Phil Kuo, MD, Ph.D., who are refining the new methodology to give doctors the ability to directly diagnose the acid content in tumors of cancer patients at the clinic level.

"This is a tool that is currently available to very few scientists across America," Pagel said. "So we have recently collaborated with the Barrow Neurological Institute and other sites in Phoenix to implement our methods in their research centers. These collaborations demonstrate that this method can assist in the individual, personal treatment of breast cancer patients around the world."

Pagel says another unique aspect of this research is the discovery of a chemical agent already approved for clinical X-ray imaging can also be used for MRI studies, allowing clinical trials to begin without approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Pagel cited a generous gift from the Community Foundation of Southern Arizona as support for the initial development of the new method, and a recent gift from the Phoenix Friends of the Arizona Cancer Center that has let researchers begin the process of bringing the method to the cancer clinic level. "These gifts supported the critical innovations in our research that led to the $2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health," he said. "This demonstrates the tremendous value of private support for innovative research at the University of Arizona."