ORION
Optimised Remote radIOtherapy plaNning
Challenge
Radiotherapy is, nowadays, an important tool on cancer therapy and at least 50% of cancer patients are subject to this treatment. Radiotherapy requires the use of the most advanced technology, allowing a higher accuracy of the treatment.
This treatment requires a rigorous planning which involves the determination of a set of parameters (such as weights and limits) that will configurate the machine (linear accelerator) in order to define the radiation doses to prescribe. The planning time of the treatment depends on the characteristics of the clinical case to treat, ranging between some hours, in the simple cases, to days in the most complex cases. This fact, together with the human resources limitation of the institutions and the limited number of existing radiotherapy’s equipment, makes extremely important to find tools to optimize the creation of treatment plans, ensuring their quality. The development of mechanisms to automate the creation of radiotherapy treatment plans may improve the treatments in developed countries (where most people has access to the therapy), but it can also be extremely important in undeveloped and developing countries in which the majority of the population is deprived of radiotherapeutic care.
Solution
The ORION project aims to create a comprehensive approach to the planning of radiotherapy treatments and enabling better management of human resources. It is intended to automate the treatment plan construction process, through the combination of imaging and 3D modulation editing techniques with optimization tools combined with artificial intelligence, reducing the time spent with this procedure, radically change the licensing paradigm of the software for treatment plans creation, currently in the pay-per-seat model, replacing it by the pay-per-use model, and bring closer the global demand and offer of dosimetrists, through the creation of a network joining professional and radiotherapy centres. This network will lead to a better use of the available human resources, increasing the efficiency of the Radiotherapy Centres around the world.
Objectives, Activities and Results expected / achieved
Expected Results:
Development of an integrated platform that:
1. Substantially reduces the average time spent by the dosimetrist to prepare treatment plans;
2. Build, automatically, treatment plans of equal or superior quality to the ones carried out by a dosimetrist;
3. Provide tools to support the delineation of volumes from images from the planning CAT;
4. Ensure quality control and reliability at all times in the process.
Project Reference
POCI-01-0247-FEDER-047222Funding
Intervention Region
Center (83,62%) and Lisbon (16,38%) of PortugalTotal Investment
1.204.363,80IPN Investment
526.721,45Total Eligible
1.197.590,26IPN Eligible
522.471,45EC Funding – Total
FEDER - 821.814,30EC Funding – IPN
FEDER - 391.853,58Duration
28 MonthsStart Date
2021-05-01End Date
2023-06-30Approval Date
2021-03-26Consortium
Mercurius Health, S.A.Instituto Pedro Nunes
Universidade de Coimbra
Partners
Advanced Care Oncology CenterAltnagelvin Hospital
Siemens Healthcare Pty Ltd
Keywords
Cancer;Radiotherapy;
3D modeling;
Dosimetry;
Artificial intelligence;
Automation.
