Enabling High-Quality Radiation Therapy for Cancer Patients on a Large Scale through Automation

Project summary

Radiation therapy for a cancer patient requires development of a treatment plan, consisting of individualized treatment machine settings that result in a favourable radiation dose distribution in the patient. Evidence exists that this process often results in suboptimal treatment.
This research pioneers the development of an algorithm for fully automated, multi-criterial treatment planning (AMTP). Currently, modelling is an iterative, workload intensive procedure. Even for experts it may take several months for a certain tumour type. The involved time and workload prohibit widespread use of AMTP.
This project tries to develop tools for automatic configuration of an AMTP algorithm with systematic feedback from treating clinicians.

This project is expected to contribute to higher quality radiation treatment of large groups of cancer patients with optimal utilisation of expensive treatment technology to the benefit of patients. Due to the automation, this healthcare technology innovation will also reduce the cost of radiation treatments.