RESEARCH

Directly or indirectly, cancer will touch everyone's lives. There is no greater or more worthwhile challenge than the ongoing battle to develop and improve anti-cancer treatments, for everyone's sake.

programme of research


University of Hull

2007/08

Academic Department of Radiology
Yorkshire Cancer Research
Professor of Radiology
Professor L W Turnbull  


P Gibbs                      
G Liney                       
D Manton
M Lowry                      
P Gibbs                      
LW Turnbull 
Investigation of the role of MR in the management of women at high risk of developing breast cancer

Development of MR techniques for detection and loco-regional staging of DCIS

Early prediction of response to locally advanced breast cancer to chemotherapy using MRI and both proton and phosphorus MR spectroscopy   

Establish quality assured foundations for a multi-centre study, including technical achievability of multi-parameter, multi-MR system standardised protocols   

Semi-automated tumour segmentation and analysis   

Efficacy of different shape parameters for the discrimination of benign and malignant lesions   

Algorithm for semi-automatic estimation of tumour volume by 3D segmentation of the DCE-MRI data, using a fuzzy c-means clustering algorithm  


P Gibbs                       
B Zelhof                      
M Lowry
M Pickles                     
LW Turnbull        
Determine staging accuracy of 3T MR for prostate cancer using various receivers coils

Comparison of MR derived parameters and molecular pathology in tumour staging and prognostication  

Comparison of ADC maps and cell density   

Quantitative analysis of prostate tumour enhancement curves using an accurate measurement of blood T1 to determine blood contrast concentration for use as an arterial input function (AIF).   

Development and evaluation of MR spectroscopic techniques for prostate at 3T   

Evaluation of the role of MR in management of PSA positive, biopsy negative patients   

Evaluation of MR in exclusion of invasive disease in patients with prostatic intra-epithelial neoplasia (PIN)  



M Pickles                    
LW Turnbull                   
Comparison of whole body MRI with CT, PET-CT and isotope bone scanning for detection of metastatic tumour spread 

Comparison of two point Dixon chemical shift technique for high spatial resolution T1 weighted gradient echo, STIR and VECTOR diffusion weighted imaging for lesion detection   

Image fusion by registration of the functional diffusion images onto the morphological T1-weighted images  


G Liney                        
LW Turnbull                    
Quantitative of bone strength using high resolution MRI pre, during and post chemotherapy in ovarian / breast cancer patients 

Measurement of marrow composition from: the fat/water signal ratio using IDEAL; a sophisticated three-point Dixon chemical shift MRI technique and from the fat/water ratio using non water suppressed PRESS; a single-voxel proton spectroscopy technique and development of parameter maps of fat fraction   

Comparison of MR results with conventional DEXA scanning and qCT   

Development and optimisation of post-processing methodology for qCT for extremities  


G Liney                       
LW Turnbull                    
Further development of MRI-gel dosimetry to allow radiation distributions to be visualised in exquisite detail for purpose of radiotherapy planning 

Explore the design and commercial potential of novel gel-filled phantoms  



M Pickles                    
LW Turnbull                 
Detection of lymph node spread of malignancy using STIR and VECTOR diffusion weighted imaging in pelvic malignancies in comparison with conventional imaging and radical surgical specimens  


S Booth                       
M Pickles                     
LW Turnbull                 
Determine the efficacy of functional in vivo MRI and spectroscopy techniques and ex vivo high resolution magic angle spinning spectroscopy of punch biopsy specimens in predicting response prior to and early during combined chemo-radiotherapy in patients with biopsy proven cervical cancer    

Determine the efficacy of pre-treatment molecular pathology from cone biopsies in predicting response to chemo-radiotherapy   

Assess ability of in vivo and ex vivo MR and molecular pathology, in predicting disease free and overall survival   

Determine optimal techniques necessary to facilitate a multi-centre study   

Determine diagnostic and staging accuracy of 3T MRI for ovarian malignancies