Midlands hospital in 'huge breakthrough' for cancer treatment described as a 'game changer'

A hospital in the West Midlands has introduced technology which it claims could be a "game changer" for improving cancer care. University Hospital Coventry and Warwickshire (UHCW) says it's the first hospital in the world to expand the use of a new scanner known as 'Aura-10'.

The machine checks whether all cancer has been removed from patients who have the disease in either their head or neck, while they are still on the operating table. UHCW said it was also the first centre in the UK to use Aura-10 to treat prostate cancer.

Aura-10 combines a CT scanner and a PET scanner in a small mobile unit. It can produce high-resolution submillimetre images of the cancer in a tumour in 10 minutes.

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It marks potentially a huge breakthrough for the NHS as tumours often take between four and five weeks to be tested in a lab after being removed. It's possible that the machine could reduce a patient's need for chemotherapy or radiotherapy in the future.

Donald MacDonald, a urology consultant at the trust, has been using the Aura-10 for prostate cancer operations. He told the BBC that the machine is an "absolute game changer for prostate cancer surgery". He said that, in about a quarter of cases nationally, not all the prostate cancer is removed.

Patients in those cases had to have radiotherapy to remove the remainder. Mr MacDonald said that, with Aura-10, he could be certain that all the cancer was gone.

The equipment costs around £250,000 but it could save money in the long run when considering staff shortages in histopathology and that it would mean further treatment would be required much less.

Oludolapo Adesanya, clinical lead for nuclear medicine and the trial's principal investigator, added: "This is still a trial, and we are about halfway through, but we are really excited about the results. They appear to be as good as the pathology labs and, in future, this could be used in a lot more areas of cancer care."