Introduction
This project aims to develop methods to use only high contrast MRI scans directly for prostate cancer radiotherapy treatment planning. A CT scan from the same patient would not be required, as the prostate would be automatically delineated and electron densities assigned from the MRI scan. The main benefit of this work will be to improve treatment outcomes by reducing the dosage to normal tissues, and increasing dosage to the prostate. More about the high precision MRI based radiotherapy project.
Background
Prostate cancer is the second most common cancer diagnosis in males (after non-melanocytic skin cancer) and the second most common cause of male cancer death (AIHW, 2007). Radiotherapy provides a non-invasive therapy for prostate carcinoma which has been shown to provide an effective treatment for patients at a broad range of risk levels. However due to uncertainty in the delineation of the prostate from CT scans the radiation dose can be applied to areas of healthy tissue (such as the bladder and rectum).
This project is a collaboration between the CSIRO Australian e-Health Research Centre, the Department of Radiation Oncology, Calvary Mater Newcastle Hospital the University of Newcastle and is partially funded by the Cancer Council NSW through Project Grant RG 07-06.
Aims
The main aims of this project are to investigate methods to automatically detect and segment the prostate borders on MRI scans and to develop algorithms to automatically segment organs and assign electron density information to MRI scans for radiotherapy dose calculations for treatment planning (currently this is not possible as MRI scans lack the electron density information required to calculate radiation dose).
References
AIHW, 2007. Cancer in australia: an overview.
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) & Australasian Association of Cancer Registries (AACR) Cancer series no. 37.
