Gregory Sorensen, MD, Chair
Massachusetts General Hospital
Specific Aims
- Develop and validate functional imaging markers of response to therapy for malignant glioma
- Develop combined functional and anatomic imaging approaches to characteizing head and neck cancer to support targeted therapy.
Future Plans Overview
The overall strategy of the Head and Neck/Neuro Committee is to continue carrying out studies in concert with other cooperative groups’ treatment trials to improve the use of imaging as a biomarker for disease response and/or patient selection. Two studies are planned—one involving the development of predictive biomarkers of therapeutic response using 18FDG-PETand the second investigating 18F-MISO for hypoxia in glioblastoma treated with antiangiogenic therapy.
The first will enroll patients with newly diagnosed head and neck cancer with planned bilateral neck dissection. The committee views this study as an opportunity to 1) compare the sensitivity and specificity of PET and CT/MRI in staging head and neck cancer with that of pathologic neck dissection, 2) evaluate the potential impact on patient management of using PET in staging head and neck cancer, and 3) assess the potential for changing the standard of care from routine NO neck dissection in high-risk patients to observation or XRT only.
The second study, planned in cooperation with NABTT, is a single-arm, open-label, phase 2 trial of bevacizumab administered concurrently with standard fractionated, focal, radiation for patients with newly diagnosed glioblastoma and unmethylated methylguanine-DNA methyltransferase (MGMT) promoter. The primary endpoint will be progression-free survival at 6 months and overall survival. Imaging and biological endpoints will also be included.