Magnetic Sentinel Lymph Node Mapping in Upper Gastro-Intestinal Cancer: A Feasibility Clinical Investigation

This is a multi-centre, partially blinded, side-by-side comparator study to assess the safety and tolerability, feasibility, and potential added diagnostic and clinical value of using the FerroTrace® and FerroMag SLNM System for mapping SLNs in subjects with gastric, gastric-oesophageal junction, and oesophageal cancers, consisting of a safety lead-in phase and an expansion phase. A safety lead-in phase will be adopted to determine the optimal dose for the expansion phase. For the safety lead-in phase, a minimum of 6 eligible subjects will undergo a FerroTrace® injection followed by Research magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to visualise and assess SLNs. Safety will be monitored for 7 to 14 days, and will include reviews of safety, pharmacokinetics, image quality data from MRI pre and post FerroTrace® injection, and MRI SLN identification feasibility. Dose escalation/de-escalation may be performed using a 3+3 design if required. Upon successful completion of the safety lead-in phase, a dose of FerroTrace® will be selected for use in the expansion phase. The expansion phase will consist of three cohorts of subjects (gastric, gastric-oesophageal junction, oesophageal cancers). Eligible subjects will undergo a FerroTrace® injection followed by a Research MRI to visualise and assess SLNs. If applicable a post neoadjuvant therapy Research MRI may be performed. The Research MRIs will be blinded to the multi-disciplinary team (MDT). During surgery a comparator product, Indocyanine green (ICG) with a near-infrared camera, will be used to identify fluorescent lymph nodes and in histopathology on ex-vivo specimens a magnetometer (FerroMag) will identify SLNs. The identification and location of all identified SLNs will be recorded, and all will be examined with fine serial sectioning and immunochemistry by pathology. The study will assess disease free and overall survival and its correlation to histopathology and SLN location.