By repurposing existing CT scans, an ALES nutrition researcher is now better able to design diets that can help counter muscle wasting, a common, problematic side-effect of cancer.
For a clinical trial of a new drug that appears to prevent muscle wasting, Carla Prado analyzed 400 computerized tomography images (CT scans) of patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer. The scans had been taken for diagnosis and during cancer treatment.
Her analysis of body composition showed that patients who add one kilogram of muscle improve their physical function considerably. They also prolong their survival rate by 3.2 months, a significant amount for advanced cancer, said Prado, who is also the Campus Alberta Innovation Program Chair in Nutrition, Food and Health.
With that baseline measure to aim for, Prado is now starting a randomized control trial to reverse muscle wasting in cancer patients through diet.
Without a precise measure of what helps with muscle wasting and by how much "we don't know exactly how much protein to give them to build muscle," she said.
Using CT scans for body composition analysis is rare. Although CT scans measure muscle tissue in great detail, they're high in radiation and expensive.
Indeed, for this trial of its new drug enobosarm, the pharmaceutical company GTx Inc. initially measured its results with dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA), an imaging tool that does not directly measure muscle mass. Although DXA measures lean tissue in which muscle is an important component, lean tissue includes organ mass, tumor mass and can also be altered by the water content of the body.
Knowing that cancer patients routinely get CT scans for cancer diagnosis and treatment follow ups, and that the scans taken for non-small cell lung cancer patients would provide a direct measurement of muscle change, Prado suggested they retrieve those scans from the medical record.
Having both an accurate analysis of muscle improvement, and a value associated with improved outcomes (i.e. one kilogram) helps with a plan for assisting it through diet, which is important to the survival rate of cancer patients, said Prado.
That's because muscle wasting starts a downward spiral for them.
"We know that loss of skeletal muscle is a strong predictor of poor physical function, poor quality of life," she said.
"With poor functional status they have more severe toxicity to cancer treatment. If they get very sick they'll have to discontinue chemo. So they have a shorter time to tumor progression … and shorter survival time."
Moreover, expected survival times help cancer physicians decide on what interventions to carry out in the first place.
In addition to this use, Prado believes the opportunistic use of existing CT scans is applicable to any other chronic condition that's similar to cancer and causes people to lose a lot of muscle and in which these images are available, such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, aortic stenosis and cirrhosis, among others.
"We can use the same measuring technique and also perhaps the same benchmark," she said.
Prado expects to publish her findings by the end of the year.
For a clinical trial of a new drug that appears to prevent muscle wasting, Carla Prado analyzed 400 computerized tomography images (CT scans) of patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer. The scans had been taken for diagnosis and during cancer treatment.
Her analysis of body composition showed that patients who add one kilogram of muscle improve their physical function considerably. They also prolong their survival rate by 3.2 months, a significant amount for advanced cancer, said Prado, who is also the Campus Alberta Innovation Program Chair in Nutrition, Food and Health.
With that baseline measure to aim for, Prado is now starting a randomized control trial to reverse muscle wasting in cancer patients through diet.
Without a precise measure of what helps with muscle wasting and by how much "we don't know exactly how much protein to give them to build muscle," she said.
Using CT scans for body composition analysis is rare. Although CT scans measure muscle tissue in great detail, they're high in radiation and expensive.
Indeed, for this trial of its new drug enobosarm, the pharmaceutical company GTx Inc. initially measured its results with dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA), an imaging tool that does not directly measure muscle mass. Although DXA measures lean tissue in which muscle is an important component, lean tissue includes organ mass, tumor mass and can also be altered by the water content of the body.
Knowing that cancer patients routinely get CT scans for cancer diagnosis and treatment follow ups, and that the scans taken for non-small cell lung cancer patients would provide a direct measurement of muscle change, Prado suggested they retrieve those scans from the medical record.
Having both an accurate analysis of muscle improvement, and a value associated with improved outcomes (i.e. one kilogram) helps with a plan for assisting it through diet, which is important to the survival rate of cancer patients, said Prado.
That's because muscle wasting starts a downward spiral for them.
"We know that loss of skeletal muscle is a strong predictor of poor physical function, poor quality of life," she said.
"With poor functional status they have more severe toxicity to cancer treatment. If they get very sick they'll have to discontinue chemo. So they have a shorter time to tumor progression … and shorter survival time."
Moreover, expected survival times help cancer physicians decide on what interventions to carry out in the first place.
In addition to this use, Prado believes the opportunistic use of existing CT scans is applicable to any other chronic condition that's similar to cancer and causes people to lose a lot of muscle and in which these images are available, such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, aortic stenosis and cirrhosis, among others.
"We can use the same measuring technique and also perhaps the same benchmark," she said.
Prado expects to publish her findings by the end of the year.