PROJECT TITLE: AUTOMATIC TREATMENT PLANNING OF CERVICAL CANCER HIGH-DOSE RATE BRACHYTHERAPY FOR LOW-RESOURCE SETTINGS

Cervical cancer is a major disease globally and 85% of the cancer burden occurs in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Standard of care is external-beam radiotherapy with high dose-rate brachytherapy (HDRBT). Adding brachytherapy to the treatment course improves overall survival by 12% and reduces local recurrence. HDRBT treatment planning is a complex process. Brachytherapy in low-resource settings often do not have adequate human expertise for this task, limiting the wide-spread use of this effective therapeutic form and significantly affecting treatment outcomes. Aiming at solving this problem, VeloxAI, a spin-off of UT Southwestern Medical Center (UTSW), proposes a Phase-I SBIR project in collaboration with clinical experts at UTSW to develop AutoBrachy, the world first software system to realize fully automatic treatment planning of cervical cancer HDRBT. We will pursue two specific aims: Aim1, to develop automatic segmentation tools and rigorously refactor AutoBrachy to plan for commercialization; Aim2, to implement AutoBrachy at multiple participating sites, including those in LMICs, to evaluate its feasibility and merit. The innovation of our project is that it enhances HDRBT of cervical cancer in low-resource settings by utilizing novel computational approaches. Deliverability is ensured by extensive preliminary studies and the partnership with complementary expertise and resources.