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Announced at the 2017 Lawson Impact Awards, Drs. Stewart Gaede and Gerald Wisenberg were recipients of Lawson’s annual Strategic Research Fund (SRF) competition. With their project, “Assessing acute cardiac inflammation after left-sided breast cancer radiotherapy with hybrid PET/MRI,” the Lawson researchers will explore the cardiovascular effects of radiation therapy for left-sided breast cancer.

Radiation therapy is critical to modern breast cancer treatment. It has led to improved survival rates with many patients living long lives following their treatment.

Unfortunately, when delivering radiation therapy, we cannot avoid irradiation around surrounding tissues, including the heart. This is a concern since such irradiation may lead to cardiovascular disease later in life.

Currently, the effects of radiation to the heart can only be detected one or two years afterwards. With the help of their Lawson SRF award, Drs. Gaede and Dr. Wisenberg will use PET/MR imaging to detect earlier effects of radiation and construct new guidelines and treatment strategies for left-sided breast cancer patients.

“We’re seeing more and more breast cancer survivors, but many women with left-sided breast cancer are now developing heart disease later in life,” says Dr. Gerald Wisenberg, Director of Cardiac Imaging Research at Lawson and cardiologist at London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC). “We hope to improve their outcomes through this research.”

Recently, Drs. Gaede and Wisenberg discovered that an increase in cardiac inflammation can be detected as early as one week after radiation using PET/MR imaging. This inflammation may be the cause of cardiovascular disease seen in women 10 to 15 years after treatment.

In the new pilot study, the researchers will follow 15 left-sided breast cancer patients undergoing radiation therapy. They will be imaged one week before as well as one week and one year after radiation therapy with Lawson’s hybrid PET/MRI scanner at St. Joseph’s Hospital in London, Ontario.

Areas of inflammation, changes in blood flow, scar formation and fibrosis will be measured by looking at the differences between images. The data will help in the design of new treatment strategies that can hopefully decrease or eliminate inadvertent heart damage. By doing so, it could help to improve patients’ quality of life.

“The earlier we can detect the effects of radiation for left-sided breast cancer, the earlier we can intervene,” says Dr. Gaede, a Lawson imaging scientist and medical physicist at LHSC’s London Regional Cancer Program. “We hope to learn more about the ways in which radiation is affecting the heart so that we can construct new radiation techniques to better spare the heart.”

Learn more about this research:

Now in its third year, Lawson’s Strategic Research Fund (SRF) supports research projects that will advance science in alignment with Lawson’s strategic research goals, as outlined in Lawson’s 2014-2018 Strategic Plan. This year’s competition once again focused on “inflammation”. Chosen projects received $50,000 over a two-year period.

Amanda McIntyre was presented with the 2018 Leadership Award for Fellows & Students at this year’s Lawson Impact Awards, recognizing her skills as a leader, researcher, clinician and community advocate. McIntyre is a PhD candidate in nursing at Western University and a part of Lawson researcher Dr. Robert Teasell’s team at St. Joseph’s Health Care London’s Parkwood Institute.

McIntyre began her career at Lawson as a research assistant in 2011 and since then has built an impressive academic and research record, while at the same time obtaining a nursing degree from Western University. In addition to her many research obligations, she continues to take regular nursing shifts in the emergency department to build her clinical experience.

“We nominated Amanda because she’s kind of like a renaissance person. She does a lot of things and whatever she does, she does really well,” says Dr. Robert Teasell, medical director of the Stroke Rehabilitation Unit at Parkwood Institute.

McIntyre is involved in a variety of research projects in the field of neurorehabilitation and has been an author on 50 peer-reviewed publications.

She is the project coordinator and an editor of the Spinal Cord Injury Evidence-Based Review (SCIRE), an extensive and comprehensive review of the Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) Rehabilitation literature considered to be the leading research synthesis of SCI rehabilitation anywhere in the world. She also had an active role in the development of the Canadian Best Practice Recommendations for Stroke Care.

McIntyre is a two-time recipient of the Mary Elizabeth Horney Fellowship in Rehabilitation Research, which is funded through St. Joseph’s Health Care Foundation. As part of her fellowship, she is conducting research on the transition of stroke patients from inpatient to outpatient rehabilitation, and back to the community. Her doctoral research will focus on the delivery and access of care in emergency departments and the influence this has on patient outcomes.

McIntyre has assumed a supervisory and mentorship role in Dr. Teasell’s lab. She has been instrumental to the development of many research assistants, students and volunteers.

She is also currently the graduate students’ representative on the Nursing Research Advisory Committee, and a research practicum mentor for Nurse Practitioner students at Western University, allowing her to act as an advocate for current and future nursing students.

She says, “Winning this award is a huge privilege. It represents not just my successes but our entire team’s success, so I think it’s a win for all of us.”