BRAINATOMY - Leveraging the Cancer Team Science Approach
This article was originally published in Issue One of Discover: Cancer Research In Manchester. All articles are available to read on the MCRC website and a PDF version can be accessed through the links at the end of the page.
Expert biologists, physicists, doctors, patients and patient advocates were brought together on BRAINatomy, an innovative data-driven study aimed at improving the long term outcomes for children diagnosed with brain tumours, jointly-funded through a collaboration between Stand Up To Cancer® in the US and Cancer Research UK’s Stand Up To Cancer® (SU2C) campaign.
Children with brain tumours are often treated with radiotherapy, a type of cancer treatment that uses x-rays or protons. Whilst effective, radiotherapy can lead to damage to certain parts of the brain causing issues with memory, hormone regulation and overall quality of life. In BRAINatomy 1, researchers used image-based data mining methods- a way of comparing radiation dose to specific regions of the brain with patient outcomes- to identify areas of the brain that are sensitive to radiation treatment.
Researchers studied MRI scans from patients before and after radiotherapy and identified features on pre-treatment scans that were associated with later learning difficulties and parts of the brain where receiving radiotherapy was linked to changes in brain function.
These changes were associated with the development of learning difficulties and hormone regulation issues later on in childhood.
Identifying these sensitive regions of the brain means that researchers can create a map of areas to avoid during radiotherapy treatment. For example, they discovered that radiation dose to an area of the brain that includes the hypothalamus, which is responsible for controlling the release of hormones, water retention and appetite among many other things, was associated with later learning difficulties.
Further funding has been secured from Stand Up To Cancer® and Cancer Research UK to extend the project into BRAINatomy 2. This stage of the project will assess the effects of proton beam therapy, a type of high-precision radiotherapy treatment that uses high dose protons, comparing it to traditional radiotherapy. It will also test whether giving replacement hormones or drugs to reduce inflammation- a common side effect of radiotherapy treatment- could counteract its damaging effects, and whether advanced scanning of children who have finished their treatment could be used to predict others that are most at risk of damage.
The goal is to improve quality of life, allowing a child to live as normal a life as possible after successful treatment for their cancer.
To find out more about this groundbreaking research, visit the CRUK and brainstrust websites.
