Elite-Level MRI Shows Promise for Early-Stage Bladder Cancer Treatment

An elite-level MRI could one day help with the diagnosis treatment and prognosis of early-stage bladder cancer reported researchers at the University of Michigan and U-M Medical School. The findings are published in the Journal of Ultrasound and Neurohealth Research.

On average 2600 people in Michigan are diagnosed with bladder cancer in Michigan each year. Characterized by the development of prodromal urinary tract cancer or forgoing cancer for a period of time most patients go on to develop acute myeloid leukemia or AML which accounts for about 80 of patients with bladder cancer. Bergstrms lab has developed two MRIs-one which has been validated at the U-M Institute of Biomedical Imaging and is now widely used in the hospital setting and a second more advanced MRI for primary cancer screening.

A combination of advanced MRIs can predict patients response better than current methods including an ordinary MRI with common blood tests. However they dont work for all patients according to patient conditions. In 2016 Bergstrm and his colleagues developed an MRI screening system based on using this technology for examination of patients tumor growth in the hopes of aiding screening in patients previously diagnosed without underlying diseases.

We found that after screening the technique could be used for all patients with curable or curable invasive-type disease regardless of the type of disease or underlying conditions said Bergstrm chair of biomedical engineering at the University of Michigan and the College of Engineering Applied Science.

Bergstrm and his team believe that an advanced MRI in the future could be used to evaluate patients during the staging of their cancer for how it developed in the past a screening tool that could help doctors and patients communicate efficiently about the treatment response.

The clinical tests will be transcutaneous tumor-specific T-maze imaging which is an alternative non-invasive way to assess the presence of cancer. The T-maze is a scanner that heats tissue tissue before it cools again dumping fluorescent molecules inside the area where they activate a laser. Bergstrm also plans to develop software for scanning patients using advanced MRI techniques to make this approach more sophisticated and increase the potential for sensitivity accuracy and streamlined systems.

The researchers hope to enhance the approach for early-stage curable-type cancers.

We want to increase the sensitivity of the MRI testing by as much as possible Bergstrm said. Were not only recording the MRI signal but also putting the signals through the computer which can apply not only to MRI but other commonly used basic diagnostic tests such as blood pressure cholesterol and cholesterol).