New means of predicting radiotherapy side effects devised

Researchers have developed a potential new means of predicting whether patients undergoing radiotherapy will suffer from the common gastrointestinal side effects associated with the treatment method.

The team from the University of Warwick and the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust have examined the relationship between levels of toxicity in the gut and the likelihood of experiencing side effects when receiving pelvic radiotherapy.

It was surmised that patterns in toxicity levels arose from differences in a patient's gut microflora, so scientists were able to create a sensor system that can detect the chemicals that are produced by these microflora in stool samples.

A broader investigation will now be carried out to evaluate possible uses of these technologies in standard clinical practice.

Dr James Covington from the Warwick School of Engineering said: "This technology offers considerable opportunities for the future … We foresee a time when such technology will become as routine a diagnostic test as checking blood pressure is today."

Radiotherapy involves the controlled use of high-energy x-rays to treat many different types of cancer, with around 40 percent of cancer patients receiving this type of treatment at some point.