The course will be a combination of didactic lectures and interactive clinical sessions. The overall aim of this course is to explore how new technologies can be best used for patient benefit with a focus on scientific evidence. 
The lectures aim to provide multidisciplinary knowledge and understanding of:
•    The clinical rational for the use of advanced technologies in radiation therapy
•    Errors and uncertainties and how multimodality imaging, respiratory motion management, MR-Linacs, surface guidance and adaptive radiotherapy are used to mitigate these.
•    IMRT delivery techniques and planned evaluation.
•    Applications of stereotactic (body) radiotherapy and particle therapy, use of automation and artificial intelligence in radiation oncology contouring and planning.
•    An outlook to possible future technologies, like FLASH, heavy ions and grid therapy.
Complementary to the lectures, this course has interactive clinical sessions where expert oncologists, physicists and radiographers will discuss developing protocols for the clinical implementation of advanced technologies, including IGRT, adaptive RT, cranial SRS and SBRT.
 

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this course participants should be able to: 
•    Discuss and select modern treatment techniques based on their pros and cons.
•    Select physics and technical measure that enhance effective and sage application of radiation therapy.
•     Discuss approaches for gathering scientific evidence for clinical application of novel technologies.
•    Get an understanding of the use and applications of novel emerging technologies.

Course Content

•    Modern emerging for treatment planning
•    Errors, margins and correction strategies
•    Respiratory motion management
•    IMRT delivery and plan evaluation
•    Stereotactic radiotherapy and radiosurgery
•    Biophysical models
•    Particle therapy
•    Adaptive radiotherapy
•    Automated and artificial intelligence
•    Health technology assessment
•    Designing studies to assess new technology
•    Novel emerging technologies (Heavy irons, FLASH and Grid therapy)
 

Clinical Sessions

There will be five interactive multidisciplinary clinical sessions where faculty will coordinate discussion and contouring, plan evaluation, patient specific QA and imaging protocols in different clinical sites.
•    How to develop site wise protocols for PTV margins and image guidance in your department: Head and Neck cancers, Gynaecological and Prostate cancer.
•    Lung SBRT (indications, selected contours in EduCase, patient selection and dose constraints).
•    Cranial SRS (OaRs and constraints, Gamma-knife or Cyberknife vs linac based, QA).
•    Breast DIBH and IMRT.
•    Liver SBRT (indications, liver toxicity and dose constraints, respiratory motion management during scanning an delivery).

Course director

• Ben Heijmen, Medical Physicist, Erasmus MC, Rotterdam (NL) 
• Indranil Mallick, Radiation Oncologist, Tata Medical Center, Kolkata, (IN)

Teachers

• Mairead Daly, Radiation Therapist, The Christie Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and University of Manchester, Manchester (UK)
• Andrew Hope, Radiation Oncologist, Princess Margaret Hospital, Toronto (CA) 

The programme is available here

Please find a flyer here.

Registrations

The registrations are managed by AROI. Please register here.