A new ACRIN committee will help further the ACRIN scientific objectives by pursuing cutting-edge imaging research. The Experimental Imaging Committee will work with the disease site committees to investigate developing modalities, new uses for established modalities, and new or untested equipment. "Studies undertaken by the committee will likely be somewhat different from prior ACRIN studies," says David Mankoff, MD, chair of the committee. "The focus is going to be early studies of advanced cancer imaging approaches,and working out the 'kinks' of new image acquisition and analysis approaches in small pilot multicenter trials. We may also look at a more quantitative or detailed version of current procedures, such as 3-D spectroscopic imaging or dynamic FDG-PET.

The committee, which is still in the formative stage, will be further discussed at the ACRIN Fall Meeting and developed as part of ACRIN's grant renewal application. Committee members will have a broad range of expertise, from researchers specializing in cancer biology to experts in radiopharmaceuticals and other diagnostic imaging agents. Committee members will work closely with the ACRIN Outcomes Core Laboratory and the Biostatistics Center at Brown University. Mankoff says, "This is a brand-new start for me with ACRIN and cooperative trials. I'm looking forward to working with everyone."

The trials developed in the committee will have common patient entry criteria and standardized imaging procedures, and they will include 2-4 sites. "The pathway for taking some of these new imaging techniques through initial development and into multicenter clinical trials involves a long cycle of development," explains Mankoff. "This committee's job will be to facilitate and shorten the process. Studies will also match current trends in cancer treatment; we hope many of the studies will be directed towards novel, individualized cancer treatment."
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