Description

The Imaging Group brings together radiologists, nuclear medicine physicians, and scientists from across Europe who are interested and active in medical imaging. Medical imaging is a key component of clinical trials in oncology for patient selection and stratification, workflow management, planning therapy, monitoring response (including in vivo pharmaco-dynamic and -kinetic drug behavior), and follow-up. EORTC’s multidisciplinary imaging research promotes the scientific and clinical value of imaging across modalities by spearheading advanced techniques including translatable quantitative biomarkers, radiomic analyses, and artificial intelligence to address biologically-driven questions. Specialist interests also include successful delivery of immunotherapy and image-guided treatment (theranostics).

The transversal Imaging Group aims to conduct and support trials dedicated to optimizing and evaluating new imaging approaches; embed imaging-oriented side-trials in trials conducted by the Disease-Oriented Groups; provide imaging-related advice during the design of clinical trials and assist with centralized read-out of imaging data. These aims are achieved through expertise across all relevant imaging modalities and disciplines as well as direct links to EORTC’s Disease-Oriented Groups. The group also has active ties to major scientific societies (EANM, ESR, ESTRO, …) as well as national associations.

Main Achievements

  • Hosted virtual plenary meetings featuring keynote lectures from world-renowned experts. The last autumn theme focused on Fibroblast Activation Protein (FAP) theranostics with FAP inhibitors (FAPI), a rapidly emerging pan-tumoral target. The earlier spring meeting was on European multi-site collaborations regarding imaging in glioma (GliMR consortium) and imaging standardisation in kidney disease (Parenchima project).
  • Established a new collaboration with PINTaD (Pharma Imaging Network for Therapeutics and Diagnostics), which is primarily North-America-based and focuses on imaging in oncological clinical trials.
  • Continued strengthening of transversal research including through our Disease Oriented Group (DOG) liaisons. The Oligometastatic Disease Subcommittee has made substantial progress with the Delphi consensus on imaging in Breast Cancer in collaboration with the Breast Cancer Group. The Quality Control Subcommittee together with the Gastro-Intestinal Group has collected the data for standardisation of imaging in colorectal cancer.
  • Continued extensive educational activities – some of them virtual or hybrid – including at congresses for the two main European imaging societies. At the European Association of Nuclear Medicine (EANM) annual conference, we held a joint session on ‘Nuclear Medicine in Precision Oncology’. We held another joint session at the European Congress of Radiology (ECR, the ESR annual conference), entitled ‘Trials and tribulations: can imaging biomarkers tell the whole bony story?’

Related Projects

  • IMI QuIC-ConCePT – Quantitative Imaging in Cancer: Connecting Cellular Processes with Therapy. The EORTC is coordinating the project. QuIC-ConCePT aims to provide drug developers with imaging biomarkers that can show earlier and more accurately how patients’ tumours respond to drugs in cancer clinical trials. Imaging biomarkers are being tested within series of clinical validation studies including the trial EORTC-1217-IG-LCG “Evaluation of 3′-deoxy-3′-[18F]fluorothymidine -PET and diffusion-weighted imaging -MRI in patients with early-stage non-small cell lung cancer treated with a platinum-based doublet as preoperative chemotherapy” and Trial EORTC-1423-IG-GITCG “Evaluation of diffusion-weighted imaging -MRI in patients with resectable liver metastases from colorectal cancer treated with fluoropyrimidine-based chemotherapy as preoperative treatment”.
  • IMI2 Tristan – Imaging Biomarkers for Safer Drugs: Validation of Translational Imaging Methods in Drug Safety Assessment. The EORTC is coordinating the project.  The 5-year project will focus on the validation of translational imaging methods as potential imaging biomarkers for the assessment of liver toxicity, lung toxicity and the bio-distribution of biologics. (No website available yet)
  • EORTC RP 1106: A three-step study on the feasibility and prognostic value of rCBV in patients with GBM.
    (project leader: M. Smits) This is a threestep project:

    • Technical evaluation of acquisition a standardized protocol, centralized data storage, and quality assurance.
    • Compare quantification to select and test post-processing tools, to standardize methodology for rCBV measurements and to assess inter- and intra-reader variability.
    • Prognostic value of rCBV to predict patient outcome.
      A publication on repeatability and reproducibility of relative cerebral blood volume measurement in recurrent glioma will be submitted soon.
  • EORTC RP 1547 (PICRIB): Platform for imaging in clinical research in Brussels
    (project leader: J. Vandemeulebroucke)
    PICRIB is a clinical imaging platform that will enable the interoperability of the Brussels University hospitals and facilitate patient mobility. EORTC is the WP7 lead and provides guidance regarding standards applicable for imaging used in clinical trials e.g. image acquisition and interpretation, and inter-institution quality assurance/ quality control.

Research Group

Group documents
  • Chair

    Frederic Lecouvet

    Cliniques Universitaires Saint-Luc

    Brussels, Belgium

  • Vice-Chair

    Egesta Lopci

    Humanitas Clinical and Research Hospital

    Milan, Italy

  • Secretary

    Luc Bidaut

    Independent Expert

    Scotland, United Kingdom

  • Treasurer

    Wolfgang Kunz

    Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet Muenchen - Campus Grosshadern

    Muenchen, Germany

Additional People

  • C. Caramella - Paris, FR

    Specta

    Groupe Hospitalier Paris Saint-Joseph - Hopital Marie Lannelongue

  • W. Kunz - Muenchen, DE

    QA

    Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet Muenchen - Campus Grosshadern

  • H. Lmalem - Brussels, BE

    QA

    EORTC Headquarters

  • L. Bidaut - Scotland, GB

    Pintad, Radiomics & Big Data

    Independent Expert

  • N. deSouza - Sutton, GB

    Eiball

    Royal Marsden Hospital Sutton

  • L. de geus-oei - Leiden, NL

    Education and Response criteria

    Leiden University Medical Centre

  • L. Fournier - Paris, FR

    Response criteria

    Hôpital Européen Georges Pompidou

  • D. Oprea-Lager - Amsterdam, NL

    Oligometastatic disease

    Amsterdam University Medical Centres (Location VUmc)

  • F. Lecouvet - Brussels, BE

    Oligometastatic disease

    Cliniques Universitaires Saint-Luc

  • D. Pasquier - Lille, FR

    Image-guided treatment

    Centre Oscar Lambret

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