Detection of treatment-induced early cardiac injury with PET/MR v1.0
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Detection of treatment-induced early cardiac injury with PET/MR to enable treatment adaptation to reduce side-effects in patients with lymphoma
IRAS ID
289880
Contact name
Georgios Ntentas
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Guy's & St Thomas' NHS Trust
Duration of Study in the UK
3 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
Patients with lymphoma receive treatment with chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Treatment is usually successful, and most lymphoma patients survive many years. However, chemotherapy drugs have ingredients that damage the heart, and when radiotherapy is used to treat a tumour near the heart, it also damages it. This damage can cause serious heart disease. This research intends to find ways to reduce the risk of heart disease in lymphoma survivors by detecting early heart damage during and soon after treatment (six months) in lymphoma patients. We will identify treatment characteristics that might be causing early heart damage to the whole heart or parts of it and propose ways to adapt treatment for future patients to reduce the risk of early heart damage.
26 patients will have scans using advanced medical imaging – combined positron emission tomography and magnetic resonance imaging (PET/MRI) to detect heart damage at four timepoints:1) Before treatment (to establish first if the heart is healthy or diseased)
2) After chemotherapy (to understand how chemotherapy affects the heart)
3) After radiotherapy (to understand how radiotherapy affects the heart and
separate the effect from that of chemotherapy, and find which areas of the
heart are more sensitive to radiation)
4) Six months after treatment (to understand how early damage progresses)We will also perform electrocardiograms (tracing of the heart’s rhythm) and blood tests that can show heart damage and relate these to the findings from imaging at these four timepoints. The patients in this study will benefit from a unique cardiac monitoring programme. If we find signs of early heart damage, we will refer them for cardiology follow-up. For future lymphoma patients, results of this study will help us adapt treatment to stop, or minimise, treatment-related risk of heart disease, improving life expectancy and quality of life.
REC name
Yorkshire & The Humber - South Yorkshire Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
21/YH/0170
Date of REC Opinion
12 Aug 2021
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion