Assessing the benefits of adaptive proton therapy in paediatric patients
- Planned secondments: Aarhus University (Denmark), Paul Scherrer Institut (Switzerland) and KU Leuven (Belgium)
- PhD program: University of Manchester
Project description
Proton therapy offers significant advantages to young patients by delivering highly conformal radiation while minimising dose to healthy tissues. This is crucial for preserving quality of life, reducing long-term side effects, and supporting normal growth and development. However, proton treatment plans are more sensitive to anatomical changes than conventional radiotherapy, making adaptive strategies essential to maintain safety and effectiveness throughout treatment. Young patients present additional challenges for adaptive radiotherapy, including diverse treatment indications of varying complexity, treatment under general anaesthesia and different risk profiles, where imaging dose and late effects must be carefully balanced. Since opening in 2018, The Christie Proton Beam Therapy Centre has treated over 840 paediatric patients (≤16 years) and >360 additional teenage and young adult patients (≤25 years). This rich dataset provides a valuable opportunity to investigate adaptive proton therapy in young patients and develop strategies tailored to their needs.
This project aims to address the research questions:
- Can patterns of change observed in young patients be used to guide adaptive treatment strategies using short-term robust plans (plans designed to be robust to anticipated changes over a small number of upcoming fractions)?
- How can young patients most benefit from adaptive treatment strategies and how should such strategies be adjusted for their different risk profiles?
This will be achieved through:
- Quantifying anatomical uncertainties – analysing on-treatment imaging across a large patient cohort to identify phenotypes of change (e.g., weight variation, sinus filling, bowel changes) and their impact on treatment plans.
- Developing strategies for evolving uncertainty evaluation in adaptive planning – building models to predict short-term anatomical changes using recent imaging and patient characteristics to guide robust treatment planning.
- Evaluate the dosimetric benefit and risk trade-offs for paediatric patients – comparing daily adaptive approaches with short-term robust plans to determine which patient categories benefit most from adaptation.
The candidate will be embedded within the Radiotherapy Related Research team at the University of Manchester and the Proton Therapy Physics team at The Christie NHS Foundation Trust, gaining expertise in proton therapy physics, advanced image analysis using 3D imaging, and handling large, multidimensional datasets. The project will involve multidisciplinary clinical research with opportunities to work alongside experts from different fields.
For more information concerning the research project please contact:
Marianne Aznar
Candidate profile
Doctoral Candidate at the University of Manchester
We are looking for a candidate with a background in physics, medical physics, computer science or related fields. Experience with medical image analysis would be an advantage.
This project is at the crossroads between physics and clinical oncology and will require communication with multiple professional groups and occasionally with patient representatives: experience of multi-disciplinary work and strong soft skills would be an important asset.
University of Manchester
PROJECT BENEFICIARY
The University of Manchester is Britain’s largest and most popular university, with a distinguished history of academic achievement and an ambitious agenda for the future. The CRUK RadNet Manchester Unit of Excellence, in collaboration with the Christie NHS Trust, was one of only three major units awarded by Cancer Research UK, recognising our multi-disciplinary expertise in biology, clinical oncology, physics, software development, engineering and imaging. The candidate will benefit from the excellent research facilities that The University of Manchester and The Christie NHS Foundation Trust (one of the largest cancer centres in Europe) offer.