Targeted Radiotherapy Internal Dosimetry: A platform for individualized patient dosimetry and radiobiological assessment

Obiettivo

In radiation therapy (RT), which is used in more than 50% of cancer treatments, the dose delivered to the tumour/normal tissue determines tumour control and toxicity. Targeted radionuclide therapy (TRNT) is an effective growing type of RT in which radiative compounds with high tumour affinity are administered to patients. While in external RT there are well-defined methodologies to accurately determine the dose, this is not the case in TRNT. Traditionally, TRNT dosimetry is obtained from simple biokinetic models, developed many years ago, and non-individualized dosimetric factors calculated in phantoms. This dosimetry is inaccurate and not patient individualized. The recent European council directive 2013/59/Euratom, transposed on Feb 2018, has clearly highlighted the need to accurately report all doses from radiopharmaceutical procedures, hardening the criteria of previous regulations. The objective of this project is to develop methodologies for the accurate, individualized dosimetry and radiobiological assessment of TRNT, shifting from the current paradigm of empirical treatment to the era of personalized treatment. This will be achieved by the following actions: a) adaptation of Monte Carlo codes for patient’s internal dose calculation, considering novel biokinetic models of the drug biodistribution; b) development and implementation of radiobiological algorithms to evaluate tumour control/toxicity; and c) implementation of a platform useful for the clinical practice, incorporating these models and allowing easy handling and user interactivity. To successfully address this, the researcher experience will be combined with the host organisation (FIDIS) capabilities, a leading biomedical research institute where the supervisor is already involved in TRNT research. FIDIS will also provide clinical data for the models development/validation, an interdisciplinary environment and a training program greatly contributing to re-enforce the researcher professional maturity