Improved diagnostics and treatment through a state-of-the-art multi-center nuclear medicine approach: Applications in cancer and dementia
The overall objective of the project is to facilitate multi-center clinical nuclear medicine research by implementation and development of novel methodology and analyses in the diagnosis, follow up and treatment settings, to bring this field beyond state of the art for the betterment of patients across Norway.
Hybrid PET/MRI will have a central role in this project, and therefor the focus is on patient groups where this modality has shown promising potential; In detection and characterization of cancer, as well as suspected dementia, for guiding treatment strategies in cancer, including implementation of multimodal data to guide latest technology within radiation, radionuclide and proton therapy and navigated neurosurgery, and to develop novel or improved, robust and clinically relevant image analysis tools.
The multi-center data collection is coordinated from Trondheim, while patient inclusion and data collection are distributed across the partner sites in Tromsø, Trondheim, Bergen and Stavanger. In this project, hybrid imaging will merge nuclear medicine and radiological specialties to foster transdisciplinary collaborations at an expert level under international collaboration and supervision. The molecular and physiological data obtained with the unique combination of simultaneous PET/MRI will create the basis for new and improved understanding of disease pathophysiology, a steppingstone to develop new patient stratification and personalized treatment schemes.
Partners
Work Packages:
WP1: Prostate Cancer
1 in 8 men will have prostate cancer in their lives. Molecular imaging may offer huge benefits in all stages of the diagnostic work-up, and PET imaging using the tracer prostate specific membrane antigen (PSMA) has shown promising results. This WP aims to establish nation-wide protocols for PSMA-PET (in combination with hybrid MRI or CT)…
WP2: Diagnostic assessment of amino acid PET/MRI in the evaluation of glioma and brain metastases
MRI is used in clinical routine for diagnosing brain tumors, but has limitations in identifying tumor grade, true tumor extension and differentiating viable tumor tissue from treatment induced changes and recurrences. Many brain tumors express increased levels of amino acid transport, which can be imaged with a PET scanner using amino acid radiotracers. Using both…
WP3: Early and late onset cognitive impairment
Cognitive and memory problems can be a sign of dementia, but can for instance also be part of a depression or due to a brain tumor. Alzheimer´s disease, the cause of most dementia cases, is associated with abnormal precipitations in the brain which interferes with brain function and leads to neuronal death. These precipitations can…
WP4: Establishing the clinical workflow for PET- and MRI-based radiotherapy
In WP4 we will establish the clinical workflow for PET- and MRI-based radiotherapy. We will acquire PET and MR images prior to and during radiotherapy and develop new concepts for image-based biologically adaptive radiotherapy, both based on state-of-the-art photon-based radiotherapy and also proton therapy, which soon will be available for cancer patients in Norway. Our…
WP5: Machine Learning
In the machine learning work package, we aim to develop and validate new methods that exploit the quantitative nature of the PET and MR images. We will develop a pipeline for pre-processing and quality assurance of the acquired images, as well as a toolbox with machine learning algorithms focusing on region classification and detection of…
Advisory Board
Anette Storstein
Haukeland University Hospital
Toril A. Nagelhus Hernes
Norwegian University of Science and Technology