
With this funding, we intend to fully automate radiotherapy for the treatment of acute oncological conditions such as severe pain, bleeding and neurological symptoms in patients with a diverse range of advanced cancers. These treatments, which are currently prepared manually, make up around 80% of the indications for radiotherapy in patients presenting for treatment in low- and middle-income countries. Our tools, which include artificial intelligence, will use automated quality assurance to ensure safe, effective, and timely treatments – minimizing reliance on manual checks which are time-consuming and can be inefficient. It is expected that patients can be treated very quickly after receiving a CT scan (minutes), rather than waiting days or weeks. Overall, this project is synergistic with ongoing work in our group focused on automating other radiotherapy planning tasks. Our goal is to make these services available as a cloud-based service for minimal cost for clinics in low- and middle-income countries to rapidly scale up and help deliver affordable and equitable cancer treatment. This supports the overall long term goal of making radiotherapy available to all patients who could benefit (both treating urgent and emergency presentations, as in this proposal, and curative treatments), irrespective of financial status. Radiotherapy is both inaccessible and unaffordable for the majority of patients diagnosed with cancer in low and middle income countries due to shortfalls in basic infrastructure, equipment and specialist manpower. Eighty-percent of patients in these settings are diagnosed with locally advanced or widely disseminated cancers. We will use artificial intelligence to automate radiotherapy plan preparation for acute oncological conditions in patients with a diverse range of advanced cancers that are endemic in these country settings such as cervical, breast and head and neck cancers. This will mean that patients can be treated very quickly after receiving a CT scan (10 minutes), rather than waiting days or weeks as is the current norm. This will directly benefit patients in LMICs by increasing the likelihood of palliating symptoms of disseminated malignancy (pain, bleeding, shortness of breath, spinal cord compression), improving long term control of cancer, and reducing the cost of treatment.

With this funding, we intend to fully automate radiotherapy for the treatment of acute oncological conditions such as severe pain, bleeding and neurological symptoms in patients with a diverse range of advanced cancers. These treatments, which are currently prepared manually, make up around 80% of the indications for radiotherapy in patients presenting for treatment in low- and middle-income countries. Our tools, which include artificial intelligence, will use automated quality assurance to ensure safe, effective, and timely treatments – minimizing reliance on manual checks which are time-consuming and can be inefficient. It is expected that patients can be treated very quickly after receiving a CT scan (minutes), rather than waiting days or weeks. Overall, this project is synergistic with ongoing work in our group focused on automating other radiotherapy planning tasks. Our goal is to make these services available as a cloud-based service for minimal cost for clinics in low- and middle-income countries to rapidly scale up and help deliver affordable and equitable cancer treatment. This supports the overall long term goal of making radiotherapy available to all patients who could benefit (both treating urgent and emergency presentations, as in this proposal, and curative treatments), irrespective of financial status. Radiotherapy is both inaccessible and unaffordable for the majority of patients diagnosed with cancer in low and middle income countries due to shortfalls in basic infrastructure, equipment and specialist manpower. Eighty-percent of patients in these settings are diagnosed with locally advanced or widely disseminated cancers. We will use artificial intelligence to automate radiotherapy plan preparation for acute oncological conditions in patients with a diverse range of advanced cancers that are endemic in these country settings such as cervical, breast and head and neck cancers. This will mean that patients can be treated very quickly after receiving a CT scan (10 minutes), rather than waiting days or weeks as is the current norm. This will directly benefit patients in LMICs by increasing the likelihood of palliating symptoms of disseminated malignancy (pain, bleeding, shortness of breath, spinal cord compression), improving long term control of cancer, and reducing the cost of treatment.
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