ESTRO 2022

ESTRO 2022 – In Real Life!

I had the pleasure of attending ESTRO 2022, in Copenhagen from 6^th to 10^th May. It was the second time I have attended ESTRO in person, and it made for a pleasant change from having attended the previous 2 years virtually. The theme of this year’s congress was learning from every patient. I tried to vary the sessions I attended and made sure I went to different tracks so that I could get a sense of the developments in physics right through to supportive oncology care. I was blown away by the quality of the sessions; however, if you are fortunate enough to have access to the online content I would highly recommend the following session: “Ethnic disparities in outcomes with radiation therapy” by Naman Julka-Anderson.

In addition to attending the scientific sessions meeting colleagues and friends in real life was so beneficial. I am in a split post between UCLH and UCL, and bizarrely the first time I met some UCL colleagues in person was in Copenhagen. It did make me think if we should and can do more together, as the discussions in person were so fruitful! Of course, the first priority we had was to establish the vendor with the best coffee. ESTRO is full-on, starting at 08:00 and networking lasting well into the evening, so coffee is a necessity for me. Once this was established, I tried to support colleagues by watching their presentations or chairing sessions. I think even though catch-up is available it is really important we support each other if our schedule permits. I wish I could have caught every session, from our team; however, to name a few I really enjoyed Prof Nisbet “Preparing your elevator pitch”, Adam Szmul “CBCT-to-CT synthesis using weakly-paired cycle-consistent generative adversarial networks” and Sabrina Taylor “Surface imaging to track inter-fractional anatomical variation in paediatric abdominal radiotherapy”.

This was my first year attending as a member of the yESTRO committee. An open call went out from the committee in late 2021 and I was successful in my application and interview and appointed to the committee in December 2021. Being a committee member definitely made for a different congress. I had a lot of meetings to attend and I really had to keep on top of my schedule, nonetheless, it made for an exciting few days! It has only been a few months, but I can only recommend getting involved with ESTRO. If this is something that interests you… Here is your chance! The yESTRO committee is establishing an opinion panel for our young/early career members. We are looking for Radiotherapy professionals up to the age of 39 years of age who are ESTRO members or are motivated to contribute to ESTRO initiatives. Panellists would be expected to complete the opinion panel questionnaire every 2 months. Panellists would also agree to share their information with ESTRO committees, task forces, and initiatives. If this is something that interests you, please sign up here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/SP2R97H You can also contact me directly if you have any questions.

By day 3, I was a little worried I was almost “networking” too much. I was taking a pause with fellow PhD students, discussing general concerns, difficulties etc. I also found myself grabbing a coffee with clinical colleagues to discuss difficulties they were also experiencing clinically e.g., when trying to introduce a new radiotherapy technique. At first, I was worried I should be attending EVERY scientific session; however, I spoke to a senior colleague who kindly reminded me that these events are as much about the scientific sessions as they are the conversations over lunch. On Monday there was the annual ESTRO party. This is an absolute must for congress goers. What I love about this party is everyone attends and there is an emphasis on having fun, in the midst of learning, networking etc.!

Overall it was a fantastic few days away in Copenhagen! I believe the sun was shining outside, not that I saw much daylight. Next year ESTRO will be in Vienna. I will be contributing to the yESTRO track and I am really looking forward to it already! I think next year it would be really great if we could have a department dinner, or perhaps even stay in the same location? Supporting each other and doing things together only makes these experiences even better! The theme for next year is “From innovation to action” and the deadline for the abstract submission is 26^th October. I can’t wait to see what abstracts our department submits!!

Written by Amanda Webster, Research and Development Specialist Therapeutic Radiographer at UCLH and CRUK, RadNet CoL PhD Candidate

ESTRO 2022

Europe’s largest meeting for radiation oncology, ESTRO 2022, took place in Copenhagen, Denmark, from 6–10 May on the theme of “Learning from every patient”. Two over-arching topics were tackled in six parallel programme tracks; Squamous cell carcinomas and what makes them so special; and the importance of time in radiotherapy.

“The ambition of ESTRO is to further reinforce radiation oncology as a core partner in multidisciplinary cancer care, and to guarantee accessible and high-value radiation therapy for all cancer patients who need it,” says conference chair Ben Slotman, head of radiation oncology at AmsterdamUMC in the Netherlands. “After a difficult couple of years, this is more poignant than ever as, in 2022, we expect to again be able to freely get together and connect.”

UCL Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering contributions to ESTRO 2022

Invited Presentation

• Status and potential of dual-energy CT in radiotherapy E. Baer (United Kingdom)
• Definitive therapy for locally-advanced and localised metastatic anal cancer: Using the toolbox M. Hawkins (United Kingdom)
• Accreditation for clinical trials: Dosimetry and audits C. Clark (United Kingdom)
• Preparing your elevator pitch A Nisbet United Kingdom)

Oral Presentation

• Optimising tissue-equivalent materials for proton therapy H. Cook (United Kingdom), M. Simard , N. Niemann , C. Gillies , H. Palmans , M. Hussein , H. Bouchard , G. Royle , A. Lourenço
• Standard vs dose escalated chemoradiotherapy in anal cancer: Phase II results of the PLATO-ACT5 RCT A. Gilbert (United Kingdom), J. Webster, S. Brown, J. Copeland, S. Ruddock, R. Adams, M. Harrison, R. Muirhead, A. Renehan, D. Sebag-Montefiore, M. Hawkins
• SCALOP2:A multicenter randomized trial of RT dose escalation and nelfinavir in pancreatic cancer S. Mukherjee (United Kingdom), C. Qi, R. Shaw, J. Bridgewater, G. Radhakrishna, N. Patel, B. Tranter, P. Parsons, S. Falk, H. Wasan, D. Holyoake, R. Roy, M. Scott-Brown, C. Hurt, D. Sebag-Montefiore, T. Maughan, M. Hawkins, P. Corrie
• Integral proton radiography scatter reduction through pencil beam pixel weighting and thresholding D. Robertson (USA), C. Darne, C. Fekete, S. Beddar
• Integrated-mode proton radiography using 2D lateral projections and a scintillator M. Simard (United Kingdom), D. Robertson, S. Beddar, C. Collins-Fekete
• A likelihood-based particle imaging filter using prior information R. Fullarton (United Kingdom), L. Volz, N. Dikaios, R. Schulte, G. Royle, P. Evans, J. Seco, C. Collins Fekete
• First-in-human clinical translation of oxygen-enhanced MRI onto an MR Linac M. Dubec (United Kingdom), A. Datta, A. Clough, D.L. Buckley, R.A. Little, M. Berks, S. Cheung, C. Eccles, D. Higgins, J.H. Naish, J.C. Matthews, M. van Herk, R.G. Bristow, G.J. Parker, P. Hoskin, A. McPartlin, A. Choudhury, J.P. O'Connor
• Relationships between Monte Carlo calculated dose parameters and lung densities in lung SBRT Y. Tsang (United Kingdom), J. Duong, G. Jackson, R. DeSouza, K. Ko , P. Nariyangadu, C. Clark
• Robustness of spine SABR plans to delivery errors within machine tolerance: multicentre analysis M. Hussein (United Kingdom), J. Lehmann, C. Clark
• CBCT-to-CT synthesis using weakly-paired cycle-consistent generative adversarial networks A. Szmul (United Kingdom), S. Taylor, P. Lim, J. Cantwell, D. D’Souza, S. Moinuddin, M. Gaze, J. Gains, C. Veiga
• Surface imaging to track inter-fractional anatomical variation in paediatric abdominal radiotherapy. S. Taylor (United Kingdom), P. Lim, J. Cantwell, D. D’Souza, S. Moinuddin, Y. ChingChang, M. Gaze, J. Gains, C. Veiga
• Systematic progression changes can assist robust IMPT plan selection for head and neck patients Y. Zhang (United Kingdom), J. Alshaikhi, R.A. Amos, W. Tan, G. Royle , E. Bär

Poster Discussion

• Development of mid-treatment biological image guided adaptive radiotherapy (BIGART) for glioblastoma M. Gupta (United Kingdom), L. Mancini, S. Bisdas, S. Manolopoulos, M. Kosmin
• Optimising oxygen-enhanced MRI for patients with head and neck carcinoma M. Dubec (United Kingdom), R.A. Little, D.L. Buckley, C. Hague, J. Price, M. Berks, S. Cheung, A. Salah, D. Higgins, J.H. Naish, J.C. Matthews, M. van Herk, G.J. Parker, A. McPartlin, J.P. O'Connor
• Changes in cortical blood flow >1 year after radiation for glioma using arterial spin labelling MRI M. Kosmin (United Kingdom), M. Gupta, M. Sokolska, B. Eiben, J. Markus, H. Hyare
• Assessment of Catheter Displacement on Single Fraction HDR Prostate Brachytherapy Treatment S.K. Abdul Wahab, M. Boutros, G. Sands, A. Nisbet (United Kingdom)
• Clinical plan sensitivity to TPS parameters & complexity metrics that best capture this relationship F. Brooks (USA), M. Glenn, J. Pollard-Larkin, R. Howell, C. Peterson, C.L. Nelson, C.H. Clark, S.F. Kry

Poster

• Characterising anatomical changes of head and neck cancer patients during radiotherapy treatment P. Nikou (United Kingdom), A. Nisbet, A. Thompson , S. Gulliford, J. McClelland
• Investigating proton therapy as a treatment option for pregnant breast cancer patients R. Ahmad (United Kingdom), E. Baer, K. Pile, C. Collins-Fekete, S. Gulliford, S. Wickers, M. Hawkins
• A novel system and approach for proton radiography using a monolithic scintillator detector C. Darne, D. Robertson, C. Collins-Fekete, S. Beddar (USA)
• Dosimetry standardization of Total Body Irradiation of mice in a SARRP irradiator I. Silvestre Patallo (United Kingdom), F. Shi, R. Carter, A. Nisbet
• A national program for the implementation of lung Stereotactic Ablative Body Radiotherapy (SABR) P. Diez (United Kingdom), A. Haridass, J. Lilley, R. Patel, E. Miles, A. Tree, C. Clark, C. Dean, K. Fell, F. McDonald
• Evaluation of deep learning-based OAR segmentation in paediatric radiotherapy settings I. Silva, A. Szmul (United Kingdom), J. Cantwell, P. Lim, D. D’Souza, S. Moinuddin, V. Alves, J. Gains, C. Veiga
• Quantitative evaluation of whole-body spatial normalisation in paediatric patients C. Veiga (United Kingdom), J. Cantwell, R. Ahmad, P. Lim, D. D'Souza, M. Gaze, S. Moinuddin, J. Gains