Cancer break-through on the way

In a few years Danish hospitals with scanning facilities will be able to predict immediately whether a patient's cancer will spread and what treatment will be the most effective.

Prof. Andreas Kjær, DMSc, is heading a ground-breaking research project which this week received a grant of 13,3 million DKK from the Danish Council for Strategic Research.

The medical paradigm shift focusing on individualised, custom therapy has made it increasingly important to be able to diagnose at molecular level. The project is expected to be extremely significant for physicians' ability to determine whether a patient requires immediate aggressive cancer treatment.

Most molecular biological methods require tissue samples for in vitro diagnosis. In contrast to this, molecular image formation allows for non-invasive study at molecular level of living, intact organisms. With PET it is possible to use radioactive isotopes to visualise an entirely new group of biomolecules. This technique can be applied for non-invasive visualisation of tissue characteristics such as angiogenesis and the metastatic properties of tumours. The methods are expected to lead to a break-through in diagnosis and treatment of cancer in particular. Of all the various methods of molecular image formation, nuclear medicine methods, such as PET, demonstrate the greatest translational potential, and methods developed in animal models can be directly transferred for use on humans. The object of this translational project is to apply both animal-experimental and clinical studies to develop, evaluate and utilise non-invasive molecular image formation with PET for tissue characteristics in patients in order to plan individualised, custom therapy.
 
The aim is to develop successful PET ligands for radionuclide therapy (target-seeking radiation treatment). It is expected that, at the end of the project, several new PET tracers will have been introduced and at least one new type of radionuclide therapy.

Contact:
Prof. Andreas Kjær, DMSc, Consultant - Rigshospitalet, Dept. of Clinical Physiology, Nuclear Medicine & PET