Hamlet.rt : Evaluation of Machine Learning in Radiation Oncology

  • Research type

    Research Study

  • Full title

    Hamlet-RT - Heuristics, Algorithms and Machine Learning: Evaluation & Testing in Radiation Therapy

  • IRAS ID

    232333

  • Contact name

    Rajesh Jena

  • Contact email

    rjena@nhs.net

  • Sponsor organisation

    Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and the University of Cambridge

  • Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier

    ClinicalTrials.gov ID, NCT04060706

  • Duration of Study in the UK

    9 years, 0 months, 0 days

  • Research summary

    Hamlet.rt is a collaborative research study undertaken by the Oncology Centre at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, the Cambridge Cancer Trials Centre, The Centre for Mathematical Imaging in Healthcare at the University of Cambridge, and the Microsoft Radiomics team at Microsoft Research, Cambridge. The aim of the study is to evaluate new mathematical models and machine learning technologies to assist clinical staff in the usage of medical imaging for cancer patients, specifically those who are receiving radiotherapy treatment. Ultimately, we wish to use these tools to build a system that can help predict the risk of significant side effects of radiation therapy for each individual patient who needs radiotherapy treatment.

    The models and technologies that we need to develop for this project fall into two areas. In collaboration with colleagues at Microsoft Research we will develop machine learning tools that allow us automatic identification of the position and extent of tumour and healthy organs in CT and MRI scans that are used both to prepare radiotherapy treatment, and during image guided radiotherapy treatment. This process is known as image segmentation and it is the first step in any form of detailed image analysis in radiation therapy. The second area is the construction of continuously learning models that can predict the likelihood and severity of a side effect occurring in a patient, based on image data, clinical assessments during radiotherapy, and questionnaires of patients’ symptoms both before and after radiotherapy.

  • REC name

    North East - York Research Ethics Committee

  • REC reference

    19/NE/0290

  • Date of REC Opinion

    13 Sep 2019

  • REC opinion

    Favourable Opinion