Healthcare Technology Forum

STFC Innovations Club
Radiotherapy: Imaging and Dosimetry

Hosted within the hub of University Hospitals Birmingham, run by NHS Foundation Trust, the event attracted over 80 delegates from a mixture of industry, academia, charities, and government organisations. This venue provided an opportunity for local medical professionals and clinicians to attend, in an effort to interact with radiation oncologists from an academic background.

The day was divided into three sessions, each within a theme. The first session chaired by Major Chahal (Innovations Directorate, STFC) provided an overview of radiotherapy from a clinicians’ perspective. In this session Dr Paul Sanghera from the local Oncology department spoke broadly about the application of radiotherapy based on his specialist interests in central nervous system tumours and other malignancies arising within the head and neck. He clearly delineated the effects of radiation on the brain and the interpretation of imaging following chemotherapy, as an introduction to the theme of the day.

Session II (a) was chaired by Professor Alan Perkins (University of Nottingham) and touched on the current research in imaging and dosimetry across academia and industry. Although radiotherapy has been used in cancer treatment for nearly a century, progress requires uncertainties in beam delivery to be improved. Such uncertainties have reduced the efficacy of the well established treatment. Professor Bleddyn Jones (Radiation Oncology, University of Oxford) and Dr Glen flux (Royal Marsden) delivered an informative account of particle therapy research, where currently quality assurance of beam characteristics is the key factor in treatment planning. Ongoing developments in industry were represented by GE Healthcare and Siemens, providing an industrial view to this research activity and highlighted current shortfalls in many cancer treatments in the UK.

The networking opportunity over lunch facilitated a fruitful interaction between delegates and speakers from all corners of industry, academic and clinical sectors. Promptly, session II (b) continued after lunch, chaired by Dr Barbara Camanzi (RAL) and disseminated the future directions in this field from ICR (Institute of Cancer Research) and Medical Physics department at University Hospitals Birmingham (Dr Stuart Green). The next step was competently presented, and promoted the use of biological information to change treatment strategy, which requires fast measurements of a biological response to the treatment.

Session III concluded the day’s event by showcasing three types of STFC knowledge exchange funded projects bridging research expertise between physics and biotechnology. The talks which will shortly be available on our web page, demonstrated the use of knowledge exchange funding and the far reaching transfer of fundamental physics research in biological imaging.

Programme

Time	Programme	Speaker
10:00 - 10:30	Registration and Coffee
10:30 - 10:40	Introduction	Major Chahal - STFC
10:40 - 11:10	Session I - Chair: Stuart Green Overview Radiotherapy - The two frontiers: Imaging and Dosimetry The continued role of radiotherapy in cancer management	Dr Paul Sanghera - Oncology Department, University Hospital Birmingham
11:10 - 12:40	Session II(a) - Chair: Stuart Green Current Research (Imaging and Dosimetry) Academic and Industry perspectives
	What do we need alongside particle therapy? (link opens in a new window) (PDF - 1735kB)	Professor Bleddyn Jones - Radiation Oncology University of Oxford
	Radionuclide Dosimetry (link opens in a new window) (PDF - 337kB)	Dr Glenn Flux - Royal Marsden, Sutton
	Recent product advances in PET/CT imaging	Dr Hartwig Newiger - Siemens Healthcare
	Radiopharmaceuticals	Professor Dewi Lewis - GE Healthcare
12:40 - 13:50	Lunch, Networking and Posters
13:50 - 14:30	Session II(b) - Chair: Barbara Camanzi Future research (Imaging and Dosimetry) New directions and approaches to Cancer treatment
	Imaging (link opens in a new window) (PDF-1197kB)	Dr Mike Partridge - Radiotherapy Physics Research, ICR
	Increasing radiation dose to tumour volumes with binary therapies (PDF - 4408kB - link opens in a new window)	Dr Stuart Green - Director of Medical Physics, Birmingham University Hospitals
14:40 - 15:45	Session III - Chair: Major Chahal Best practice: STFC Innovations and Healthcare Case studies and funding
	Gamma-Ray Camera	Dr John Lees - SRC Leicester University
	Real-Time 4D imaging for cell physiology	Dr Jackson Kirkman-Brown - Human Reproductive Science, Birmingham Women's Health Care NHS Trust
	ProSPECTus: Next generation single photon emission computed tomography (link opens in a new window) (PDF-1877kB)	Dr Andrew Boston - Liverpool University
15:45 - 16:30	Networking Close