The TETRIS project addresses a critical challenge in modern cancer care: how to improve long-term safety and quality of life for cancer survivors after radiotherapy. While radiotherapy is an essential and highly effective treatment, exposure to ionising radiation can lead to severe late effects, including cardiopulmonary diseases and second cancers, which may occur years after treatment.
In this context, TETRIS aims to broaden the concept of radioprotection beyond treatment delivery, shifting the focus towards a lifelong, patient-centred approach to risk management. The project specifically focuses on breast cancer, one of the most common cancers worldwide, where large populations of survivors make the long-term impact of treatment particularly relevant at both clinical and societal levels.
The overall objective is to develop innovative tools and strategies that enable personalised risk assessment and more effective prevention of late adverse effects. This includes the integration of clinical, treatment-related, imaging, and biological information into predictive models, as well as the development of digital technologies supporting clinical decision-making and follow-up care. A key innovation of the project is the exploration of digital twin approaches, namely patient-specific digital representations that integrate multiple sources of data to support dynamic risk prediction and more adaptive, data-driven management of survivorship.
By providing clinicians with individualised risk profiles, enabling more tailored survivorship pathways, and introducing novel digital approaches such as patient-specific digital twins, TETRIS is expected to contribute to safer radiotherapy practices, improved patient outcomes, and more efficient healthcare resource allocation. The project is aligned with European priorities on cancer care, data-driven healthcare, and innovation in non-power applications of ionising radiation.
