BRC funded researchers have teamed up with the Royal Brompton & Harefield Brompton Biomedical Research Unit (BRU) and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) to research treatments into the fatal lung disease idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.
The team is using PET imaging to indicate the effects of a novel GSK compound. By measuring changes in imaging signals in the lungs of patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, researchers have been able to determine whether the administered drug can be delivered to the pulmonary circulation in high enough concentration to have a beneficial impact.
The study is carrying out imaging at six different drug dose regimes to find the ideal administration of the therapeutic agent. So far eight patients have completed the study and 12 in total have been recruited.
Patients, identified at the Royal Brompton Hospital, undergo baseline PET imaging at UCLH. They are treated at the Brompton and then six weeks later return to UCLH for post treatment PET scanning.
Tracy Higgins, manager of the NIHR Biomedical Research Unit in Respiratory Disease at Royal Brompton & Harefield NHS Foundation Trust said: “This is an excellent example of the NIHR infrastructure teams coming together to deliver patient focussed research. We hope that this is the exemplar for future collaboration of this type”.
