BLUEPRINT – Brachytherapy treatment plan optimiser with Live Update Engine for personalised 3D PRINTed

Project summary

Brachytherapy (BT) is a key component in the curative treatment of cervical cancer, aiming to locally irradiate tumours with minimal dose to the bladder, rectum, sigmoid, bowel, and vagina. To improve the conformity of BT dose distributions with the patient’s anatomy, we created an algorithm to automatically design an applicator with a tailored set of needle source channels. This design is then 3D printed. In a patient  study, we showed that dose planning aims can be met more frequently with tailored (87%) than with  clinically used (76%) applicators, with clinically relevant impact. The tumour dose can improve for local  control while the bladder dose is lowered to reduce side effects.

This algorithm will be embedded with  clinically used BT software, enabling plan comparisons and live updates to visualise dose plan effects upon adjustment of needle positions or multicriterial weights of the optimiser. In a co-creation process, user tests will be conducted to assess and update the demonstrator’s functional and interface design.