Ultrasound and Optical Imaging Team
Location: Royal Marsden, Sutton
Section: Joint Department of Physics
Team Leader: Jeffrey Bamber
Clinical Support Activity (N Miller, JC Bamber)
Our scientific and technical work in support of activities in the Royal Marsden NHS Trust includes assisting with clinical ultrasound research that has been initiated or requested by other sections of the Trust. Where applicable, this activity has been reported below in the description of the research and development projects that have been carried out during the period covered by this report. Other responsibilities include the provision of advice on, and assistance with, the purchase of ultrasound equipment, acceptance testing, quality assurance and first line maintenance of ultrasound equipment, with advice to clinical personnel on specific aspects of its safe and effective use. The commercial diagnostic ultrasound equipment used within the Trust includes two Acuson Sequoia 2 digital scanners (Department of Radiology), a Phillips/ATL HD15000 (urology), an Acuson 1282 XP102 machine (jointly between Paediatric Oncology and Physics), a Hewlett-Packard Sonos 15002 (Physics), and two Cortex Dermascan-C2 22MHz ultrasound skin scanners (Skin and Melanoma Unit and Physics), one of which has been modified for en face skin imaging (see below). As a result of our close relationship with the manufacturers many of the above machines have been interfaced to a computer for acquisition and quantification of both radio frequency and colour Doppler image data, providing an unusually powerful combination of resources for clinical research. A routine service for cardiac functional measurements in paediatric patients following chemotherapy, that was set up with our assistance just under four years ago, continues to run successfully.
Research Activity
Ultrasound imaging provides essential in vivo anatomical and physiological information that can be used for early detection, differential diagnosis, staging, biopsy guidance, treatment guidance, and the assessment of response to treatment. Our research activities are strongly translational, from basic physics and technical development, to clinical evaluation. They support various fields of application, which currently include breast and breast cancer assessment, skin cancer diagnosis, assessment of side effects in paediatric cancer treatment and image guidance of minimally invasive therapies. We have just begun work on extending the last of these to problems in conformal radiotherapy, as described in the report from the Radiotherapy Research Team. Optical methods tend to complement high-resolution ultrasound, as described below in a multi-modality approach to skin cancer assessment but with considerable potential for further development and broader application.
In the Joint Department of Physics
