Functional Cardiac MRI in Young Adults with Cancer
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Functional cardiac Magnetic resonance imaging to assess short term alterations in cardiac structure and function following chemotherapy or radiotherapy in young adults with cancer.
IRAS ID
125596
Contact name
Robert Carr
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust
Research summary
Many cancers and haematological malignancies occurring in younger patients have high rates of cure, to a point where short and longer term treatment toxicity has a significant impact on survival and future health. It is well recognised that some chemotherapy drugs and radiotherapy to the chest lead to an increased risk of future heart disease and death.
To now it has not been possible to identify or measure this silent heart damage caused by treatment until heart failure or heart attacks occurs later in life. However, if we are to modify treatments to reduce toxicity, it is necessary to be able to measure subtle changes in the heart and its function soon after treatment, so that reductions in toxicity can be balanced against any changes in cure rates.
Functional cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (cMRI) can identify subtle changes in heart muscle and coronary arteries and monitor these changes over time. This, for the first time, will enable us to fully understand the incidence and degree of heart damage in response to individual treatments, to understand to what extent it is variable between individuals, and whether ‘damage’ repairs over time.
Cardiac toxicity is particularly important for children, older teenagers and young adults with cancer who, if cured of their disease, should have a normal lifespan. Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital is a designated teenage and young adult cancer centre, providing a large cohort of patients for study.
This pilot study will assess the heart by cMRI in a cohort of young patient receiving know cardiotoxic chemotherapy or radiotherapy, before and after treatment to establish whether cMRI can detect treatment related changes in the heart muscle and coronary arteries, how the changes evolve over time. As a secondary purpose we will assess the acceptability of this additional investigation before and during treatment.REC name
London - Riverside Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
13/LO/1362
Date of REC Opinion
16 Oct 2013
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion