Advancing Personalized Cancer Care with an Automated Radiomics-Based Radiation Therapy Method

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Radiation therapy (RT) is one of the main methods of treating cancer. The delivery of RT is a**complicated process that requires both clinical and technical expertise. The process of**generating an RT treatment plan, which specifies how the radiation dose for treatment is to be**delivered to the patient, relies on complex technology and considerable manual effort often**requiring hours to days of dedicated time to plan each patient. We are proposing a method to**automatically generate an RT plan that can readily be integrated into the existing clinical RT**process.**The goal of the research is to develop and make available to other institutions an automated**RT treatment planning method that will i) rapidly generate RT plans in minutes, expediting the**RT process, ii) allow patients greater access to RT based on the expertise of established**cancer institutions in Canada, and iii) produce high quality RT plans that are tailored to each**specific patient.**The automated planning method applies state-of-the-art machine learning, image registration,**and optimization algorithms to learn which relationships and patterns in RT image and RT**plan data are best for deciding where dose should be placed and how dose should be**delivered in an RT plan. The method automatically learns based on RT plan data from**previously treated patients and generates a personalized RT plan without requiring any**manual intervention.**We are engaging multiple cancer institutions in Canada to evaluate and contribute to the**development of the automated planning method in order to ensure the research has wide**clinical applicability and has consensus expert review.**The proposed research is applicable to all patients receiving RT as part of their cancer**management. The research will transform the existing RT process to make better use of**limited resources, while still ensuring high quality, personalized, and cost-effective healthcare**is accessible for all RT patients.