Development and optimisation of a patient specific radionuclide dosimetry protocol for calculation of the radiation dose to bone marrow and normal organs in patients prior to bone marrow transplant.

Around 2000 patients each year in the UK need a bone marrow transplant as part of their treatment for blood cancers such as Leukaemia. Before a bone marrow transplant, patients must have their unhealthy bone marrow eliminated from the body by a treatment programme so that they can receive healthy donor bone marrow. The treatment programme uses medicines and radiation using high energy x-rays. If a patient receives x-ray treatment, they receive a known radiation dose to the bone marrow. However, many other organs also receive a radiation dose and this causes significant side effects for the patient, which may last for the rest of their life. Radioimmunotherapy is a new technique which could replace high energy x-rays. It uses a radioactive medicine which can be injected into the patient and goes to the bone marrow. Currently, it is possible to check that other organs in the body will not receive too much radiation but it is not possible to accurately calculate the radiation dose to the bone marrow. Developing a method to accurately calculate the radiation dose to bone marrow would allow clinicians to treat patients with a personalised dose to give patients the best outcome possible and reduce side effects, improving their quality of life. My research aims to develop a method to accurately calculate the radiation dose to the bone marrow. I will develop my method using existing patient bone marrow samples and test it against patient outcome results. I will publish a protocol to allow other hospitals to use the method. I will use bone marrow samples from patients on previous clinical trials and routine clinical practice. This means patient outcome data has already been collected and no patients will need to undergo any additional procedures.