Evaluation of dynamic changes in cervical cancer during radiotherapy.
Research type
Research Study
Full title
A prospective study evaluating dynamic changes in cervical cancer through repeat biopsies and imaging during radiotherapy.
IRAS ID
209238
Contact name
Alexandra Stewart
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Royal Surrey County Hospital
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
This is a prospective study into women with cervical cancer which is localised to the pelvis. The majority of these patients will be treated with a combination of chemotherapy and radiotherapy followed by internal radiotherapy called brachytherapy. Patients who consent to participate in this study will be asked to have an additional biopsy, blood test and urine sample taken prior to any treatment starting and then again at each of the 3 brachytherapy sessions that they have. These biopsies will be used in the laboratory to identify any changes in gene or protein expression throughout the course of treatment or changes in the surrounding tumour microenvironment. This will enable us to find out more information as to why some patients with cervical cancer completely respond to chemoradiotherapy and others either have residual disease left at the end of treatment or relapse after treatment. Hopefully this will then allow us to identify targets for future treatments so that patients who have cervical cancers that are more resistant to treatment could have their treatment escalated either with the addition of other drugs or with increased radiotherapy dose. The treatment pathway for patients in this study will not be altered by this trial.
In addition to the laboratory aspect of this study, we also want to investigate whether new ways of analysing imaging during the course of radiotherapy can also help to identify patients who are more resistant to treatment. This will use the MRI and CT scans that patients routinely have during their treatment and will use a computer programme to perform Texture Analysis (TA). This has already been shown to correlate with survival in patients with lung cancer and therefore we would like to see if it provides prognostic information in cervical cancer.
REC name
London - Brighton & Sussex Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
16/LO/1807
Date of REC Opinion
28 Nov 2016
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion