Dr Thomas Ebenhan is a research fellow in the Department of Nuclear Medicine and a member of the multidisciplinary, multi-institutional Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging team at the Steve Biko Academic Hospital. Through this work and his involvement with the Preclinical Imaging Facility, he has simplified and operationalised a prostate cancer imaging technique, the first in South Africa. The Preclinical Imaging Facility is a collaboration between UP, the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation and North-West University.
Imaging research is core to the continued global growth of new strategies aimed at improving targeted molecular imaging – the study of biological and biochemical functions or dysfunctions in the body. Cancer is the main application for molecular imaging. Dr Ebenhan’s 2015 publications on prostate cancer imaging offer the potential to launch specific radionuclide therapy on a large scale to patients who have not responded to other forms of therapy. This therapy has shown that patients with latestage cancer – if responsive – improve tremendously without significant side-effects.
Based on Dr Ebenhan’s published research, the Steve Biko Academic Hospital can now apply a new form of radiation therapy that makes use of a ‘biochemical shuttle’ to bring radioactivity in the direct vicinity of the cancer or cancer satellite. The presentation of the latter is known as metastasis, the spread of a cancer from one organ or part of the body to another without being directly connected with it.
