Grant: Project Grant

Prostate cancer is the most common and third deadliest cancer in men. Death from prostate cancer is caused by cancer spread to other organs, i.e., metastasis. A new kind of treatment for metastatic prostate cancer uses a radioactive drug that specifically targets the cancer to irradiate it, which is called radioligand therapy. While radioligand therapy is promising, its administration is currently suboptimal, as all patients receive the same amount of the radioactive drug. Because each patient is different, this one-size-fits-all approach results in a huge variability in where and how much radiation is delivered into the body. We will use modern medical imaging modalities to track the radioactive drug during the treatment. This allows to precisely calculate how much radiation is delivered to organs and tumors of the patient. We will simplify and optimize how this imaging is performed to make it convenient for the patient yet yielding accurate results. We will also use advanced analysis methods and artificial intelligence to aid in the simplification of existing protocols and to extract even more information from medical imaging that could help predict the response and outcome of the patient following radioligand therapy, i.e., the efficacy and the potential side effects. All this information will allow personalizing radioligand therapy, i.e., tailoring the treatment for each individual patient, in order to maximize the irradiation of his cancer, without increasing the toxicity to healthy organs. With personalized radioligand therapy, it is anticipated that the majority of patients could safely receive more of the treatment, letting hope for better efficacy.