Mitchell Schnall, MD, PhD, Interim Chair
University of Pennsylvania
Specific Aims
- Establish imaging methods to characterize cervical cancer in an effort to optimize anatomically and functionally targeted treatment.
- Explore combined in vitro diagnostic & imaging approaches to ovarian cancer surveillance in high-risk women.
Future Plans Overview
The committee’s scientific strategy focuses on treatment trial collaborations with the Gynecologic Oncology Group and the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group, recruitment of nonradiologist members, imaging of high-risk populations, and image guidance and planning for brachytherapy and other targeted treatment. Planning is underway for a study to establish imaging methods for cervical cancer characterization in an effort to optimize anatomically and functionally targeted treatment. It will examine the utility of pretreatment tumor parameters and intratherapy tumor response as measured by FDG-PET/CT and DCE-MRI in radiation treatment planning.
A second study in development will investigate the use of a serum biomarker test (possibly the 6-analyte panel under evaluation by the Yeda Research and Development Company) in combination with imaging to detect epithelial ovarian cancer in high-risk women. The committee hypothesizes that the combination of the Yeda serum biomarker test and imaging will be able to detect ovarian cancer at an earlier stage, thus increasing overall survival.