Objective
Cancer is a serious disease with high mortality and morbidity. Treatment is often performed with radiation therapy. To assure a good control of the tumour with limited side effect, a very high conformity of the radiation field is needed in the treatments. This led to the development of very complex treatments using external photon beam. There is however another, more cost-effective, way to achieve that very high conformity. For localized tumours, this can be done by inserting radioactive photon sources emitting x-rays or gamma rays, directly inside the tumour. This technique is called brachytherapy and is the focus of this proposal. Because of advantages for dosimetry and radioprotection, all the latest developments in brachytherapy source design are pointing in the direction of the reduction of the photon energy. This presents dosimetric difficulties caused for example by the increase of the importance of tissue composition. The present standard for brachytherapy considers the patient as a 30cm diameter water sphere. Another question concerns the radiobiological effectiveness (RBE) of low energy photons. Although low energy photons have been suspected to have a RBE different than the higher energy photons there are not many studies about the subject and it is not taken into account clinically. This project proposes to study the physics of low energy photons used in brachytherapy and to assess the influence of the patient geometry and composition on the dosimetry and to determine the radiation quality taking into account the non-water equivalence of tissue for low energy sources by performing physical measurements and Monte Carlo calculations. We will develop a fast and accurate way to individualize and optimize the treatment including the RBE effect. Drastically improving the dosimetry for those low energy sources is of utmost importance to bring brachytherapy at the same level of accuracy than what is currently achievable for external beam radiotherapy.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- social sciences sociology demography mortality
- medical and health sciences clinical medicine oncology
- natural sciences mathematics pure mathematics geometry
- natural sciences physical sciences theoretical physics particle physics photons
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Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
FP7-PEOPLE-2009-RG
See other projects for this call
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Coordinator
6229 ET Maastricht
Netherlands
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.