'New way to find traces of cancer has extended my life'
An MRI scan has been developed that can find minuscule amounts of the disease when traditional tests can't
Air Vice-Marshal Fin Monahan
(Image: Royal Marsden Hospital/PA Wire )
Scientists have found a new way to find tiny traces of cancer that could help 'revolutionise' care for patients with a certain form of blood cancer. Giving patients a whole-body MRI scan can detect minuscule amounts of myeloma, also known as minimal residue disease, even when traditional tests showed no signs of cancer, researchers found.
Usual tests include blood tests and bone marrow biopsies, CT scans and X-rays. Experts said that this scanning technique can provide an important insight into how well patients are responding to treatment and whether they might relapse.
Myeloma is a type of blood cancer that develops from plasma cells in the bone marrow. The condition is sometimes called multiple myeloma because it affects more than one part of the body.
The disease is not considered curable but treatment can control it. Researchers at The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust and The Institute of Cancer Research, London, tracked 70 myeloma patients who were having a stem cell transplant.
They were all given a whole-body MRI before and after the treatment. Writing in the Blood Cancer Journal, experts said that one in three patients had signs of residual disease on whole-body MRI after treatment – which can be given to patients without the use of radiation.
Overall survival was also significantly shorter in those with positive MRI findings. The Royal Marsden has already adopted the the whole-body imagine technique and it could help shape cancer care for patients around the country in the future.
One patient under the treatment of the hospital described how the scanning technique 'extended his life' and enabled him to 'continue serving' the country. Air Vice-Marshal Fin Monahan, chief fire officer for South Wales Fire and Rescue Service, was diagnosed with myeloma in 2009 while serving in the RAF. He has since relapsed twice, but thanks to whole-body MRI scans, his cancer was detected much earlier than would have been possible with a traditional CT scan.
The father of three, 57, said: 'With the constant threat of relapse, myeloma patients are in a long-term mental battle with this insidious disease. However, being part of the whole-body MRI scan study at the Royal Marsden allowed my cancer to be closely watched and resulted in me being treated sooner than I would have been under normal protocols.
'This not only extended my life but after diagnosis, I returned to flying jets and to active operational duties. I would eventually not be allowed to fly on medical grounds due to myeloma but paved the way to establishing the first training programme of Ukrainian forces in 2015 and I was called upon to run Nato air operations after the invasion of Ukraine. This cutting-edge treatment not only extended my life but allowed me to continue serving my country.'
Study chief investigator, Professor Christina Messiou, consultant radiologist at The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, and professor in imaging for personalised oncology at The Institute of Cancer Research, said: 'This study shows that whole-body MRI gives us valuable information about how well the myeloma has responded to treatment that other tests may miss. It's exciting that we now have a standardised, non-invasive imaging method that can be used across cancer centres.
'Whole-body MRI doesn't involve radiation or intravenous injections, which is important for patients who may require lifelong monitoring. This is an important step towards smarter and kinder precision diagnostics for patients with cancer.'
Professor Martin Kaiser, consultant haematologist at The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust and professor in molecular haematology at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, added: 'Access to this gold-standard precision imaging with whole-body MRI has revolutionised care for myeloma patients.
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'As the treatment options for myeloma increase and factors such as disease distribution across the body are increasingly understood as important to treatment response, the relevance of the whole-body MRI for personalising treatment will only increase over time.'
Around 6,200 people are diagnosed with the condition each year in the UK and charity Myeloma UK estimates that there are around 33,000 people living with myeloma in the UK.
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South Wales Argus
11 hours ago
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She said: 'He was looking at his his belly button, and then suddenly wanted to ask me questions about his head. 'And obviously I was slightly confused at that point. I didn't really know what the issue was, I'm just looking at my beautiful baby, and didn't think that there was an issue.' Mrs O'Rourke said the consultant asked about the shape of her son's head, adding: 'He felt like he had quite a pronounced forehead; it was quite a large head. 'And he had very visible veins on his forehead, and his temples, round his eyes. And we had seen those things, but obviously we didn't in a million years think that there was something sinister going on. 'We thought he was very fair skinned, and that was why we could see his veins. 'Looking back now, I look at pictures, and I think, 'oh yeah, you can sort of see now', knowing what we know. But in that moment in time, I was a new mum, first-time mum, didn't really spot anything untoward, really.' 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Glasgow Times
11 hours ago
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Doctor's comment about head size led to one in a million diagnosis for baby boy
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She said: 'He was looking at his his belly button, and then suddenly wanted to ask me questions about his head. 'And obviously I was slightly confused at that point. I didn't really know what the issue was, I'm just looking at my beautiful baby, and didn't think that there was an issue.' Mrs O'Rourke said the consultant asked about the shape of her son's head, adding: 'He felt like he had quite a pronounced forehead; it was quite a large head. 'And he had very visible veins on his forehead, and his temples, round his eyes. And we had seen those things, but obviously we didn't in a million years think that there was something sinister going on. 'We thought he was very fair skinned, and that was why we could see his veins. 'Looking back now, I look at pictures, and I think, 'oh yeah, you can sort of see now', knowing what we know. But in that moment in time, I was a new mum, first-time mum, didn't really spot anything untoward, really.' Mrs O'Rourke said that at the time of the appointment, Conor had not yet sat up on his own but had met all his other milestones. She was warned to take her son to A&E if he suddenly started vomiting or was difficult to rouse after sleeping, although she was reassured it was probably nothing to worry about. However, Mrs O'Rourke said the conversation played on her mind, and she called her GP the following day. Conor with dad Sean (left) and mum Lucy (right) (Lucy O'Rourke/PA) Conor was sent for an MRI in March 2023 and the couple were not worried until they were called into a family room. At that stage, doctors did not know what was wrong with Conor but told the family he had a 'significant brain issue' that would require surgery. The results were assessed by specialists at another hospital, with more scans ordered for Conor. 'It was only after those scans that they said to us that they think that it's vein of galen malformation and then started to explain to us a little bit what that meant,' Mrs O'Rourke said. 'But in reality, they'd never seen it before in Bolton.' Mrs O'Rourke said the experience was 'terrifying' and the couple felt 'helpless'. 'Throughout the whole of this, really, it's definitely been a bit of an out of body experience,' she told PA. Conor was sent to Alder Hey and had three operations called endovascular embolisations, which involves inserting a small, flexible tube called a catheter into the arteries, usually from the groin. Medics use X-ray imaging to guide the tube through the body and into place, and then inject a glue-like substance to block off the artery. In some cases, the same procedure can be performed by inserting the catheter into the veins. However, Conor is one of a rare subgroup of patients where veins block off and doctors can no longer get to the malformation. When this happens, the jugular veins – a set of major blood vessels in the neck – also block off, causing the veins from the brain to try and drain elsewhere. According to the toddler's surgeon, Conor Mallucci, this was causing swelling and damage to the toddler's brain stem and spinal cord, leading to him to deteriorate. Mr Mallucci told PA: 'It's a fight against time, and that happened quite early in Conor, which is why we had to come up with this alternative route.' The operation involved accessing the malformation through Conor's skull to target the affected blood vessels. He recovered well and is now considered '99% cured' by Mr Mallucci. Mrs O'Rourke said the family feels lucky in some ways. She said: 'As much as I feel like this is an incredibly unlucky diagnosis, I sometimes have to pull that back and think actually we were incredibly lucky in a lot of ways. 'We were already under a consultant at Royal Manchester Children's, who mentioned something. 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Western Telegraph
12 hours ago
- Western Telegraph
Doctor's comment about head size led to one in a million diagnosis for baby boy
Conor O'Rourke, now three, was treated for vein of galen malformation (VOGM) with a new surgical technique by specialists at Alder Hey Children's Hospital in Liverpool in what is thought to be a world-first. The condition – which affects roughly 10 to 12 babies in the UK each year – causes the veins and arteries in the brain to connect abnormally, increasing bloodflow and leading to severe complications if undetected. Conor was one of a rare subgroup of patients, meaning the usual treatment did not work. His mother Lucy O'Rourke, 36, from Bolton, described the last couple of years as an 'out of body experience' for her and husband Sean O'Rourke, 38. She told the PA news agency that Conor was around eight or nine months old when she took him to an appointment for a potential umbilical hernia, a usually harmless condition when the intestines bulge through the opening in muscle near the belly button. She said: 'He was looking at his his belly button, and then suddenly wanted to ask me questions about his head. 'And obviously I was slightly confused at that point. I didn't really know what the issue was, I'm just looking at my beautiful baby, and didn't think that there was an issue.' Mrs O'Rourke said the consultant asked about the shape of her son's head, adding: 'He felt like he had quite a pronounced forehead; it was quite a large head. 'And he had very visible veins on his forehead, and his temples, round his eyes. And we had seen those things, but obviously we didn't in a million years think that there was something sinister going on. 'We thought he was very fair skinned, and that was why we could see his veins. 'Looking back now, I look at pictures, and I think, 'oh yeah, you can sort of see now', knowing what we know. But in that moment in time, I was a new mum, first-time mum, didn't really spot anything untoward, really.' Mrs O'Rourke said that at the time of the appointment, Conor had not yet sat up on his own but had met all his other milestones. She was warned to take her son to A&E if he suddenly started vomiting or was difficult to rouse after sleeping, although she was reassured it was probably nothing to worry about. However, Mrs O'Rourke said the conversation played on her mind, and she called her GP the following day. Conor with dad Sean (left) and mum Lucy (right) (Lucy O'Rourke/PA) Conor was sent for an MRI in March 2023 and the couple were not worried until they were called into a family room. At that stage, doctors did not know what was wrong with Conor but told the family he had a 'significant brain issue' that would require surgery. The results were assessed by specialists at another hospital, with more scans ordered for Conor. 'It was only after those scans that they said to us that they think that it's vein of galen malformation and then started to explain to us a little bit what that meant,' Mrs O'Rourke said. 'But in reality, they'd never seen it before in Bolton.' Mrs O'Rourke said the experience was 'terrifying' and the couple felt 'helpless'. 'Throughout the whole of this, really, it's definitely been a bit of an out of body experience,' she told PA. Conor was sent to Alder Hey and had three operations called endovascular embolisations, which involves inserting a small, flexible tube called a catheter into the arteries, usually from the groin. Medics use X-ray imaging to guide the tube through the body and into place, and then inject a glue-like substance to block off the artery. In some cases, the same procedure can be performed by inserting the catheter into the veins. However, Conor is one of a rare subgroup of patients where veins block off and doctors can no longer get to the malformation. When this happens, the jugular veins – a set of major blood vessels in the neck – also block off, causing the veins from the brain to try and drain elsewhere. According to the toddler's surgeon, Conor Mallucci, this was causing swelling and damage to the toddler's brain stem and spinal cord, leading to him to deteriorate. Mr Mallucci told PA: 'It's a fight against time, and that happened quite early in Conor, which is why we had to come up with this alternative route.' The operation involved accessing the malformation through Conor's skull to target the affected blood vessels. He recovered well and is now considered '99% cured' by Mr Mallucci. Mrs O'Rourke said the family feels lucky in some ways. She said: 'As much as I feel like this is an incredibly unlucky diagnosis, I sometimes have to pull that back and think actually we were incredibly lucky in a lot of ways. 'We were already under a consultant at Royal Manchester Children's, who mentioned something. 'And then we were also incredibly lucky, in a way, that I'm very much an over-thinker, and I was an anxious mum, to not leave it there. 'And thank goodness that we did. Because if we didn't, I don't know where we would actually be.' Conor recently graduated from nursery and will be attending pre-school with his peers in September. Mrs O'Rourke said she is 'so proud' of her 'resilient' son, adding: 'At one point they were saying, 'we may want to hold him back' and 'maybe it might be a bit too much for him'. But they've said now that they think he's doing incredibly well. 'That's brilliant. And it was just magical to see him.' Mr O'Rourke has also committed to running the Manchester Marathon next April to raise money for Alder Hey. 'Thank you just doesn't cut it,' Mrs O'Rourke said. 'They not only saved his life, they saved ours too.'
