MRI, with its unrivalled soft tissue contrast, multiplanar and functional capability, plays an essential role in the imaging and subsequent management of patients with cancer. Among functional imaging techniques, diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) has significantly impacted oncological imaging over the past two decades. While DWI is primarily the focus of cancer research as a potential biomarker, […]
Erica Scurr
The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust
Cancer of unknown primary (CUP) is an oncological diagnosis encompassing whole body disease sites. The term is used in the context of histologically confirmed epithelial malignancy where comprehensive clinical, radiological and pathological investigations fail to identify the organ of origin. CUP accounts for 1-2% of cancers worldwide with 8,100 new cases per year in the […]
Dr Dimitra Christodoulou, Dr Christian Kelly-Moreland
Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust; The Royal Marsden Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
The workforce crisis in non-surgical oncology is well recognised; The Royal College of Radiologists (RCR) Clinical Oncology Workforce Census 2022 estimates a 25% shortfall in the consultant oncologist workforce by 2027. The demand continues to increase with a rising incidence of cancer, technological advances in radiotherapy planning and delivery, and new indications for systemic and […]
Dr Fiona McDonald, Melanie Clarkson, Professor Ricardo Khine
Northern Centre for Cancer Care, Freeman Hospital; Sheffield Hallam University; Queen Mary University of London
The utility of MRI as a non-invasive and ionising radiation free test is clearly recognised in oncology. Conventional MRI utilises the abundance of hydrogen (1H) nuclei in water and fat molecules in the human body. This ‘proton density’ tends to be similar across different tissues and, along with two other tissue characteristics (T1 and T2), […]
Dr Anubhav Datta
University of Manchester
The role of radionuclide molecular imaging in oncology with 2-deoxy-2-[fluorine-18] fluoro-D-glucose (18F-FDG) is well established. There is ample evidence to support the role of 18F-FDG PETCT in various clinical scenarios and cancer types. However, there has been a phenomenal expansion in non-FDG PET radiopharmaceuticals for use in clinical oncology. 68Ga is a well established radionuclide […]
Dr Gopinath Gnanasegaran
Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust
Approximately 80% of cirrhotic patients with locoregional hepatoma cannot be managed surgically and are classified as unresectable. Treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), however, includes a multitude of locoregional therapies that can variously be used with curative or non-curative intent. These therapies are known to increase overall survival and disease-free survival in those patients for whom […]
Dr Pawan Patel, Jonathan Gabriel, Arpan Patel
St George's Hospital, London
It is an exciting time for the NHS Proton Beam Therapy (PBT) Service. Two NHS PBT centres, developed with a £250 million investment by NHS England, are now up and running: the Christie Hospital treated its first patient in 2018 and University College London Hospital (UCLH) at the end of last year. Self-catering accommodation near […]
Dr Romelie Rieu, Prof Chris Nutting
The Royal Marsden Hospital
The assessment of change in tumour burden is a crucial step for the evaluation of the activity and efficacy of novel cancer therapies in solid tumours. Clinical trials require imaging to be evaluated according to specific evaluation criteria to determine disease status. The most employed is Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumours (RECIST v1.1). However, […]
Georgina Hopkinson, Dr Jonathan Taylor, Dr Peter Metherall, Dr Edward Johnston, Judith Sugden, Dr Christina Messiou
The Royal Marsden Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust