Could a Unique MRI Scan Improve Treatments for Bone Marrow Cancer?

A recent study looks at how a special type of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) could potentially provide better treatments for those suffering from bone marrow cancer.

This new type of whole-body MRI would include reducing the reliance on bone marrow biopsies for patients who have myeloma--otherwise known as cancer blood cells found in bone marrow.

Researchers believe that this could provide a less painful and more effective way to show accurate measures of how the cancer has spread.

"Finding kinder ways to monitor how patients respond to treatment is really important, particularly in the case of myeloma where taking bone marrow samples can be painful," Julia Frater, senior cancer information nurse at Cancer UK said, via a press release. "This research demonstrates how an advanced imaging technique could provide a whole-skeleton 'snapshot' to track the response of tumours in individual bones. Finding ways to make treatments gentler and improve the experience for patients is an important focus for Cancer Research UK and the research we fund."

For the study, researchers used new MRI scans that are more accurate in order to better document the spread of myeloma. Not only is the new scan more accurate than conventional tests, such as biopsies, that have been previously been used, but it's faster and provides more immediate results.

For their research, study authors had 26 patients undergo the whole-body scan before and after the treatment. In approximately 86 percent of cases, doctors were able to use scans correctly that could better identify whether patients showed a response to the treatment. Results revealed that doctors were able to correctly identify 80 percent of cases that did not respond to the treatments.

Twenty-four out of 25 doctors were also able to correctly gauge how restricted water moved throughout the tissues, based on the scans alone.

"Myeloma can affect bones anywhere in the body, which is why this study is so important. We've shown that whole body MRI scans can accurately monitor how myeloma patients are responding to treatment, allowing doctors to make more informed decisions," Dr. Faith Davies, from The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust who conducted the trial said, via tje release. "With this new scan, if a treatment isn't working the patient can be moved onto new therapies that might be more effective much more quickly."  

However, he adds that :"This is a small study, so our next step will be to try out the technology in more patients and refine it. In the future we hope this new tool will help doctors extend the life of more myeloma patients."

More information regarding the study can be found via the journal Radiology.