CATCH on CBCT
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Covid Associated Temporal CHanges (CATCH) on Cone-Beam CT in cancer patients
IRAS ID
285307
Contact name
Jamie McClelland
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Joint Research Office
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
Z6364106/2020/08/43, Data Protection reference number
Duration of Study in the UK
3 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
Cancer patients appear to be at higher risk of symptomatic COVID-19 infection, particularly patients undergoing active treatment as in- or out-patients. Additionally, cancer patients may experience higher rates of serious complications, possibly due to compromised immune function. Systematically screening of
cancer patients for COVID-19 infection has been suggested, but it is challenging: cancer treatments include many visits to hospital over the course of several weeks/months. Lung cancer patients appear to be particularly vulnerable for COVID-19 related complications; either due to their disease, the impact of treatment, or underlying health problems. Lung cancer patients undergoing chemo- or radiotherapy have been identified as ‘extremely vulnerable’ during the current pandemic by NHS England. Many of these considerations also apply to patients with oesophageal cancer or lymphoma, with the former often suffering from lung or heart disease and the latter exposed to intensive chemotherapy regimens.COVID-19 infection results in a characteristic pattern on chest imaging. These changes may even be observed before patients develop COVID symptoms. Though the role of chest imaging as a potential screening or diagnostic tool is still debated, the daily images routinely acquired during a course of radiotherapy (cone beam computed tomography scans, or CBCTs) could provide a valuable opportunity to systematically monitor for development of COVID-19 infection in an extremely high-risk patient population, and thus assist cancer department infection control.
Initial case reports have indicated that imaging changes may indeed be observed on CBCTs in infected patients. If this study confirms that CBCT changes can provide reliable information, they could be incorporate into a clinical decision support tool to refer for further investigations, particularly in pre- or asymptomatic patients, offer a low-resource complement to COVID testing, or flag the need for a retest in selected patients.REC name
Yorkshire & The Humber - Leeds West Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
21/YH/0010
Date of REC Opinion
14 Jan 2021
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion