(April) Lactate Imaging Version 1
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Investigation of Lactate Measured using Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy as a Biomarker of Tumour Response.
IRAS ID
117623
Contact name
Nandita deSouza
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
The Institute of Cancer Research
Research summary
This project is designed to investigate whether measurements of lactate in tumours, made using a magnetic resonance technique similar to MRI, is an effective non-invasive method to detect whether some new targeted drugs are having their desired effect. Several new drugs have a mechanism of action that is predicted to lead to a significant increase or decrease in tumour lactate. Lactate is usually difficult to measure with MRI owing to overlap of signals with those from lipids. However we have available a new technique developed in Philadelphia that eliminates lipid signals so that the lactate can be seen.
Having implemented the method and demonstrated that it works well in test objects, we need to be able to evaluate use in the clinical situation. One group of patients is therefore those who are enrolled in Phase 1 clinical trials of new drugs whose mechanism of action is expected to lead to large increases or decreases in lactate. However Phase 1 patients have all received many previous treatments to which their cancer has proved resistant, and therefore the response rate to new treatments is relatively low (the Phase 1 study is primarily intended to find the largest dose that can be given without serious side-effects of treatment). Therefore in order to evaluate the effectiveness of our lactate measurement we also plan to look at two groups of patients (lymphoma and metastatic colorectal cancer) who are receiving conventional treatments and who are expected to have high lactate concentrations that should change in response to these treatments.REC name
London - Brent Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
13/LO/0536
Date of REC Opinion
11 Jun 2013
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion