Grant: Idea to Innovation

Prostate cancer is the second most common cancer in North American men. Brachytherapy, which entails permanent implantation of radioactive sources into the prostate, is applied in about 55,000 cases annually in North America. There is mounting evidence that highly trained brachytherapy specialists can achieve long term disease free survival rates well above 90%, at a favorably low rate of co-morbidity. However, there is also evidence that brachytherapy performs significantly worse in community care. Faulty needle and source placement often cause an insufficient dose of radiation to the cancer and/or inadvertent radiation of the rectum, urethra and bladder. The former causes failure of treatment, while the latter results in adverse side effects like rectal ulceration and urinary incontinence. Performing dosimetry optimization on the fly, during the procedure, allows the physician to tailor the radiation dose to the cancer without harming sensitive healthy tissues. This capability hinges on precise localization of the implanted sources in relation to the prostate and surrounding anatomy. This ideal can be achieved by combining conventional ultrasound and fluoroscopy imaging modalities, but this is not available today. We invented Intensity-based Registration of Ultrasound to Fluoroscopy (IRUF), to bridge these two modalities. We have sought out a committed commercial partner that has expressed strong interest in licensing our intellectual property if we are able to prove feasibility on clinical data. We seek NSERC 121 funding to implement our invention into clinical practice. Our technology promises improved disease control and quality of life to the many millions of men suffering from prostate cancer.