Cancer drugs tracked around body

The discovery could help tailor chemotherapy to the patient

The latest cancer drugs can now be followed around the body by doctors to see if they are reaching the right spot.

The technique could help scientists work out far more quickly how effective and safe a new drug is likely to be.

This in turn could shorten the wait before an effective new drug is available to the general population of cancer patients.

For the first time we'll be able to watch with our own eyes as anti-cancer drugs move around the body

Professor Pat Price

A team led by Professor Pat Price at the Hammersmith Hospital in London managed to tag anti-cancer therapies with a tiny dose of radiation.

This could then be used to pinpoint the position of the drug molecules using a scanning machine.

Professor Price said: "I'm thrilled that for the first time we'll be able to watch with our own eyes as anti-cancer drugs move around the body."

"We should now be able to accurately judge whether drugs are effective and safe. And that'll mean better choices about which drugs to use and what doses are necessary."

The scanning technique is so sensitive that it can detect minute quantities of the drug - as low as one thousandth of the standard dose.

Calculating the correct dose of anti-cancer drugs is very important, as doctors want precisely the right amount of toxic chemical to reach the tumour and start destroying it.

It will give us a much clearer picture of what is going on inside a patient's body when they are being treated for cancer

Professor Gordon McVie

If too much is delivered, then side-effects as the drug damages other tissues could be far more marked. If too little reaches the tumour, then the cancer will not be cured.

The success of the research has been welcomed by the Cancer Research Campaign, which funded the study.

Campaign director general Professor Gordon McVie said: "It will give us a much clearer picture of what is going on inside a patient's body when they are being treated for cancer.

"It could speed up the process of drug development, making it far easier to bring lifesaving treatments from the laboratory to the bedside."

The research was reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.