Dr. Scott Bradfield is a pediatric oncologist, clinical trial principal investigator (PI), and serves as a Medical Advisor to Yunu. Dr. Bradfield's unique perspective gives a window into the life of a pediatric cancer researcher, treating physician, and technology enthusiast who sees the challenges and opportunities facing clinical trials on a daily basis.
Dr. Scott Bradfield is a pediatric oncologist, clinical trial principal investigator (PI), and serves as a Medical Advisor to Yunu. Dr. Bradfield's unique perspective gives a window into the life of a pediatric cancer researcher, treating physician, and technology enthusiast who sees the challenges and opportunities facing clinical trials on a daily basis.
Meet Dr. Scott Bradfield
I'm Dr. Scott Bradfield. I'm a pediatric oncologist who has been working clinically at a major children's hospital for the last 21 years. I've joined Yunu as a subject matter expert and medical advisor.
"My role demands constant collaboration with a diverse team, including oncologists, pathologists, surgeons, radiologists, research nurses, data coordinators, and regulatory experts. Regular discussions focus on trial logistics, precise specialty-specific data collection, patient outcomes and adapting to emerging data."
Describe an oncology research topic that you are passionate about.
How does imaging play a role in this particular area?
Imaging is a major part of oncology clinical trials. For the majority of trials, imaging will determine who's eligible for a trial and then the ultimate outcome, whether the tumor is responding or progressing to the therapy being evaluated.
What challenges are facing this field?
In oncology clinical research, several challenges have arisen. First and foremost, these trials are increasing in cost and complexity. The sponsors want to make sure that they're getting the most efficient research so they can get answers as rapidly but as safely as possible. At the same time, providers and their patients want to make sure they're enrolling in the correct trials, but the criteria by which this is evaluated and how tumors are projected to respond change with each trial.
"I admit the challenges are significant, yet so are the rewards.
The knowledge that this work shapes the future of oncology and contributes to better outcomes for patients is truly fulfilling."
How have you seen this play out with patients?
This complexity really plays out every day in the trials that we perform. It is not unusual to see a patient whose radiologic reports state that they have progressive disease. Now, a tumor may look a bit bigger through natural variation. However, suppose the radiologist is unaware of the criteria being used for this particular trial. In that case, the research staff must be aware to ensure a patient is not taken off of the study inappropriately.
What do you propose as the solution? How can this area improve?
In this day and age, you might suspect the answer to many of these problems is great innovations and technology, a software solution that can enable both the investigators and the radiologists to know in a fail-safe way, exactly what criteria are being used for a specific trial, make this as easy as possible so that studies can continue to run efficiently and there's no back and forth from the research staff as to make sure that the correct data is being collected.
What impact do you think Yunu can have in oncology clinical trials?
I found Yunu to be an amazing answer to many of the challenges that have been brought up regarding clinical oncology research with imaging. It's a software solution, but it's a clinical solution that addresses the entire workflow. It starts with the ordering process and moves to the radiologist, providing them with the exact criteria in a fail-safe manner, just as they're doing their reads to ensure that it is done correctly. It then flows to the clinical research staff, who can double-check that, and if there are any queries, it can all be done within the system. It then flows to the investigators, who can check that everything has been done correctly and also provide a readily auditable system to check this. Best of all - it's best for the patients. It makes sure they're enrolled in the correct trials. It makes sure that when it's done, they have the correct information and are determined to be on study or continue on study appropriately or be taken off when a drug is no longer going to benefit them.
Any particular patient/trial story you'd like to share?
As far as particular trial examples, I would say it is not unusual to see that the readings that come back on patients from the radiologists often have what we call their standard reads and may say that a patient has stable disease or progressive disease. But suppose it's not using the exact criteria needed for that study. In that case, it puts a patient at risk of continuing on a study that will no longer benefit them or being pulled off of a study where they may benefit from that drug. We need to make sure that those things aren't happening. Unfortunately, research has shown at various institutions, and we suspect across the country that these errors are occurring regularly in oncology clinical trials.
