Aarhus University and Aarhus University Hospital will receive DKK 17.5 million towards a new highly sensitive method for examining patients.

2016.03.08 | Lone Hanberg Sørensen

A team of researchers from Aarhus will soon be able to offer a new type of scanning at Aarhus University Hospital, due to a renewed grant of DKK 17.5 million from the Moller Foundation.

The new scanning technology – known as MR hyperpolarisation – is a further development of the well-known MRI scans. The technology is based on a Danish invention. It will provide increased knowledge and better treatment of e.g. cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases.

More precise cancer treatment

"Expectations are very high for the significance of the new method of measuring the abnormal metabolic patterns that are found in cancerous tumours. Cancer treatment can in practice have different degrees of efficiency in patients. We hope that the new scanning method will offer the possibility of adjusting factors such as the composition of chemotherapy for individual patients at an early stage. We are therefore very grateful for the grant from the Moller Foundation," says Professor Hans Stødkilde-Jørgensen from the MR Research Centre at Aarhus University Hospital. He continues:

"Other areas such as diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular diseases will also be able to benefit from this new scanning method. For example, it is well known that diabetes and arteriosclerosis of the coronary arteries are often connected. But it is perhaps less well known that the renal function can also be disturbed by diabetes, and that this is also connected with the reduction of the heart's pumping function. The precise causal relationship is not fully understood, but it is due to metabolic disturbances. And that is something that the new scanning method is really good at measuring. This means it will be possible to regulate both medical and dietary treatments at an early stage," says Hans Stødkilde-Jørgensen.

Physical framework is in place

Preliminary work on the scanner started already in 2012. Aarhus University and Aarhus University Hospital joined together in order to become one of the first places in the world with a hyperpolarisation scanner. For Allan Flyvbjerg, dean at the Faculty of Health at Aarhus University, this means that a long wait is now over.

"In the Central Denmark Region and at Aarhus University we have spent the past couple of years preparing for this. We have provided financial support, partly in connection with a new building project to house equipment and laboratories, and partly by ensuring we have the experts required, including the affiliation of a new and well-known foreign researcher in the area," says Allan Flyvbjerg, who calls the donation visionary.

The MR Research Centre is also working to further expand its collaboration with the Universities of Cambridge, Oxford and Zurich, in order to maximise the results of the donation from the Moller Foundation for both researchers and patients. A number of Danish research and treatment departments are participating in getting the hyperpolarisation technique ready for patients at Aarhus University Hospital, so that it can be routinely utilised at the hospitals in the long run.

 

Further information

Professor, MD, DMSc Hans Stødkilde-Jørgensen

Aarhus University, The MR Research Centre and Department of Clinical Medicine

Direct tel.: (+45) 7945 6113

Mobile: (+45) 2338 2055

hsj@clin.au.dk

 

Dean Allan Flyvbjerg,

The Faculty of Health, Aarhus University

Direct tel.: (+45) 8715 2034

Mobile: (+45) 5177 9548

dean.health@au.dk