The challenge

TO READ ABOUT WHAT IS PLANNED AND HOW THE TEAM ARE DOING PLEASE LOOK AT  ALONG THE WAY AND LATEST NEWS

The ride from Land’s End to John O’Groats (or End to End) is one of the classic long distance cycle challenges.  It is called LEJOG if ridden north, and JOGLE if ridden south.  There are many routes and it has been cycled, walked, hopped, roller-skated and even driven on lawn mowers!

David, Thirusha, and John
 at the start of a training ride

On the 6 July 2014 a team comprising staff and patients from the UK National Amyloidosis Centre (NAC), led by John Plant (patient), Thirusha Lane (Lead Nurse) and David Hutt (Lead Nuclear Medicine Technician), will be cycling from Land’s End to John O’Groats to help raise funds towards the purchase of an MRI scanner.  This epic challenge will cover 977 miles, climbing 50,300 feet (almost twice the height of Mount Everest), arriving in John O’Groats 14 days later on the 19 July.  Others will join along the way.  Rob Harvey, a patient with a rare disease called TRAPS who is a Fever Clinic patient at the NAC, will be joining the team for a day or two.  Rob works for Evans Cycles and is a keen cyclist.


The route they will follow is shown below more detail is available on other pages 

Date	Start	Passes		Ends
July 6	Land’s End	Penzance	St Austell	Fowey
July 7	Fowey	Plymouth		Moretonhampstead
July 8	Moretonhampstead	Exeter	Taunton	Glastonbury
July 9	Glastonbury	Wells / Chepstow	Bristol / Tintern	Monmouth
July 10	Monmouth	Hereford		Clun
July 11	Clun	Shrewsbury	Chester	Runcorn
July 12	Runcorn	Warrington	Bolton	Conder Green
July 13	Conder Green	Lancaster / Ambleside	Windermere	Keswick
July 14	Keswick	Carlisle	Gretna	Moffat
July 15	Moffat	Glasgow		Balloch
July 16	Balloch	Crianlarich	Fort William	Glencoe
July 17	Glencoe	Spean Bridge		Inverness
July 18	Inverness	Bonar Bridges		Lairg / The Crask
July 19	Lairg / The Crask	Altnaharra	Thurso	John O’Groats

Why are we doing this?

We are raising funds towards the building of a new clinical and research MRI suite at the National Amyloidosis Centre.  We have made great strides in developing new MRI techniques to specifically diagnose and quantify amyloid deposits noninvasively, in particular in the heart but also very helpfully in other organs.  

MRI thus importantly supplements the information from the SAP scintigraphy scans which were invented by Professor Pepys and, with Professor Hawkins, developed into a routine clinical tool which provided the first noninvasive whole body test for amyloidosis, the basis for the National Amyloidosis Centre.  

Magnetron Aera MRI Scanner

MRI is proving to be the best way of evaluating the heart in amyloidosis, and for excluding involvement of the heart.  This research is already facilitating the development of new treatments, as well as avoiding the need for potentially dangerous biopsies in many patients.  Currently patients at the National Amyloidosis Centre have to travel to another hospital in London to undergo MRI scans and participate in related research studies, but the success of our work now demands that we create our own MRI facility to meet the ever increasing need for this new investigation.  The new MRI suite will greatly reduce the burden of travelling for patients, and will enable many more patients to undergo this new test, and without long waiting lists.

The results from MRI are amazing and as the two video clips show. 

The first video clip shows a ‘4 chamber view’ of  the heart of a healthy volunteer. It is called 4 chamber view because we can see the four chambers of the heart in this view: the left and right atria (upper chambers), and the left and right ventricles (bottom chambers). Here the four chambers have normal dimensions and the thickness of the heart muscle is normal (i.e. there is no left ventricular hypertrophy). The contraction and relaxation of both ventricles are normal, i.e. the ‘pumping function’ of the heart is preserved

The second video clip  shows a 4 chamber view of a patient with amyloidosis. Compared to the 4 chamber of the healthy volunteer both atria are enlarged,  the thickness of the heart muscle is significantly greater and the capacity of both contraction and relaxation is reduced, i.e. the heart seems to be more ‘stiff'

As mentioned above, early diagnosis is essential and the MRI scanner will assist in this and it will also lead to the development and improvement of treatments. 

We hope this cycling challenge will also help to create a “ribbon of awareness” amongst medical staff, and the general public from one end of the UK to the other. All too often patients are referred to the NAC after months of delay and misdiagnoses 

If you want more information on the NAC please visit the website at http://www.ucl.ac.uk/amyloidosis/nac.