Professor Vicky Goh receives BIR Godfrey Hounsfield Award

The BIR Godfrey Hounsfield Memorial Lecture was delivered by Professor Vicky Goh at The British Institute of Radiology’s annual congress in November. Professor Goh received her award after her talk on ‘PET-MR: integrating the best of both modalities for cancer care.’ Professor Goh is head of department, cancer imaging, at the School of Biomedical Engineering and Imaging Sciences, King’s College London, and honorary consultant radiologist at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, London.

The lecture recognised the 50th anniversary of CT and the contributions Sir Godfrey Hounsfield made to the world of imaging and cancer care.

With the aim of improving cancer care, personalised treatment is essential; giving the optimum treatment according to someone’s individual and molecular characteristics at the right time. Professor Goh gave an overview of the role of imaging in this, from x-rays to PETMR.

Benefits of PETMR include optimum use for the paediatric population where lower radiation dose is preferred; for localisation of the diagnosis where integrating PET and MR is synergistic with increased specificity and/or improved quantitation; and where simultaneous assessment of different biological and physiological process is relevant.

Published findings show higher accuracies for PETMR versus PETCT: 97.3 per cent versus 83.9 per cent and additional malignant findings in five per cent of cases. There are higher cost considerations for PETMR, although there is an argument that this could be offset by its benefits. The need for additional imaging may be obviated, management decisions made faster and lower treatment costs from better patient selection.

In line with the theme of this year’s congress, ‘Working together for excellence,’ the hybrid modality of PETMR brings together several disciplines and has demonstrated its viability as a clinical tool with reduced radiation exposure, offers new insights into the biology of disease and remains a rich source for ongoing research for future applications. With increasing personalisation of care, PETMR offers the opportunity to transform care delivery for patients.

Picture: Professor Vicky Goh

Published on page 24 of the December 2021 issue of RAD Magazine.