Grant: Collaborative Health Research Projects (NSERC partnered)

In this project, we propose to combine three Canadian advancements in ultrasound imaging to implement a new and accurate solution for detection and monitoring of cancer. We will use prostate cancer (PCa) as a test case. This is the second most common cancer in Canadian men, with about 25,000 new cases per year, and the expected global market for diagnosis and monitoring of PCs is $27B CAD/year by 2021. Accurate detection of aggressive PCa enables effective treatment of patients through surgical excision of the prostate with minimal risk for recurrence of disease. It also allows continuous monitoring of cancer progression, which is key to improve quality of life, reduce morbidity and increase patient survival. However, current detection and monitoring methods are not robust: the established ultrasound-guided prostate biopsy is unable to accurately locate tumors, and recently developed magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) approaches to visualize PCa have a very high rate of false positives and miss small and possibly aggressive cancer. Furthermore, MRI is very costly and not widely available in Canada except in large, urban centres, leading to delayed diagnosis with worse clinical outcomes. Our unique technology promises to capture changes in prostate tissue at high-resolution. We will validate this in patients with the help of our principal knowledge translation partner, Exact Imaging. In addition, we will bring together experts across natural sciences and clinical sciences with clinicians who will use the technology, at the Vancouver Prostate Centre. We will follow best practices in incorporation of sex and gender diversity in recruitment and research, and will train two PhD students, three undergraduate students, three urology fellows and one research engineer.