Fiona Mary Fennessy MBBCH, PhD, MD

Fiona Fennessy is a radiologist with significant clinical expertise in imaging in oncology, mentoring fellows, and extensive research interest and experience in quantitative MR imaging of prostate cancer. To this end, she has optimized sequences for quantitative analysis of the prostate, specifically dynamic contrast-enhanced imaging, which is now part of standard clinical prostate MRI at Brigham and Women's Hospital. currently, she is investigating methods of quantifying prostate tumor response to therapy with MRI, and evaluating these methodologies as a biomarker and guide for treatment approaches for intermediate and high-risk prostate cancer.

She has been the Principal Investigator on a number of projects specific to optimization of prostate MR for quantitative imaging, including the NIH U01 award (U01CA151261) (2010-2015) for “Quantitative MRI of Prostate Cancer as a Biomarker and Guide for Treatment”. Her research leverages the National Center for Image-Guided Therapy (NCIGT) at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, the U24 Quantitative Image Informatics for Cancer Research (QIICR) project, both of whom she serves as co-investigator, and the NCI Quantitative Imaging Network (QIN). She has co-authored numerous papers using MRI to assess prostate cancer, including evaluating the repeatability of quantitative MRI indices (ADC and DCE), evaluating the optimal histopathology correlative processes for prostate MR validation, and more recently determining the role of quantitative indices over standard PIRADS v2 assessment of prostate cancer. She is an investigator in the Prostate Core of NCIGT.