Project description
Digital twins to advance radiotherapy safety
Radiation therapy is commonly used after surgery for various types of cancer, including breast cancer. Despite protection and safety measures, radiation therapy can inadvertently expose the lung and heart to radiation, raising the risk of severe cardiac and pulmonary diseases and secondary tumours. The EU-funded TETRIS project aims to develop and test personalised risk scores to better predict and mitigate such risks caused by radiation therapy. Researchers will calibrate radiation doses, taking into account patient-specific data from imaging, genetics and transcriptomics. To further improve radioprotection strategies, TETRIS will explore the use of digital twins or virtual replicas of individual patients for enhanced risk assessment and tailored treatment plans.
Objective
Radiation protection and safety measures are essential to ensure adequate quality & safety in radiotherapy (RT). Side effects are systematically mitigated through optimisation and individualisation.
Breast cancer (Bca) is the most common cancer in women in Europe, leading to millions of BCa survivors in Europe; this group is projected to increase in the next decades.
Randomised trials established the role of RT following breast surgery. Careful RT planning and delivery allow targeting the breast while minimising the dose to organs at risk. Yet, some doses unavoidably reach the lung and the heart, putting BCa patients at risk for severe cardiac and pulmonary disease and second cancers. Quantitative personalised risk scores for late severe cardiac/pulmonary disease/second cancers following RT would reveal opportunities to further mitigate the risk of side effects at the individual patient level. Risk scores would provide a quantitative guide when shaping the patients’ follow-up and screening program to assess the risk or presence of subclinical diseases.
Within TETRIS, we propose to design and test quantitative personalised low-level risk scores based on dose-response relationships already published in the literature and refined risk scores which merge patient-specific features (from imaging, genetics and transcriptomics) with RT dose.
The project also proposes to explore the opportunities and challenges of applying digital twins (DTs) in RT safety. We will use the historical cohort to develop the prototypes and evaluate the gain we can have using digital twins for risk assessment instead of model-based risk scores.
Using a prospective collection of detailed patient data, we will demonstrate the possibility of refining DTs, allowing a deeper description of the single patient and a broader description of the patient’s follow-up.
The value of the refined DTs could shape investments in data collection and computational resources for radioprotection.
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.
- medical and health sciences clinical medicine surgery
- medical and health sciences clinical medicine oncology
You need to log in or register to use this function
We are sorry... an unexpected error occurred during execution.
You need to be authenticated. Your session might have expired.
Thank you for your feedback. You will soon receive an email to confirm the submission. If you have selected to be notified about the reporting status, you will also be contacted when the reporting status will change.
Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
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.
-
EURATOM2027 - Euratom Research and Training Programme (EURATOM)
MAIN PROGRAMME
See all projects funded under this programme -
EURATOM.1.1.4 - Nuclear science and ionizing radiation applications, radiation protection, emergency preparedness
See all projects funded under this programme
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.
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.
EURATOM-IA - EURATOM Innovation Actions
See all projects funded under this funding scheme
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.
(opens in new window) HORIZON-EURATOM-2023-NRT-01
See all projects funded under this callCoordinator
Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
20133 Milan
Italy
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.