Sydney, July 28 - A novel imaging technique is telling researchers whether a lung cancer patient is responding to treatment.

Trials with five patients revealed that some tumours responded quickly to treatment while others continued to grow. A larger trial is now underway with 20 patients.

'At present there is no reliable way of monitoring the effectiveness of therapy in killing lung cancer cells during treatment,' says Sarah Everitt, the lead study investigator, a doctoral student in medical imaging and radiation sciences at Monash University.

'We hope this information will assist us to tailor treatment according to each individual patient. It's also important because, if only a few cells survive of the millions that make up a tumour, then we have failed to cure the patient,' Everitt said.

The study used a combined PET/CT (positron emission tomography/computed tomography) scanner and a radioactive tracer called FLT.

FLT targets cells that are rapidly dividing.