Emma Vander Stichele

My research focuses on online adaptive radiotherapy (oART) for patients with head and neck cancer. In head and neck cancer, anatomical charges can occur over the course of treatment e.g., due to weight loss, tumor shrinkage, or swelling. These changes can lead to underdosing of the tumor or overdosing of healthy tissue. oART allows daily adaptation of the treatment plan based on daily cone beam CT imaging. This improves precision and potentially reduces side effects. oART is a very resource-intensive technique and not all patients will benefit equally, making patient selection essential to ensure this approach is used where it offers the greatest clinical value. We aim to identify the most favorable patient characteristics for this selection. Optimal frequency of adaptation is also not yet defined. While current adaptive strategies are often depending on previously defined timepoints or ad-hoc decisions based on imaging, we want to introduce biological modeling as an innovative approach for the development of personalized treatments. We also want to explore the combination of oART with dose painting, where biological imaging is used to locally increase the dose in tumor areas, without extra dose to the healthy tissue. 
By combining clinical knowledge with technical innovation, this research aims to improve outcomes and reduce treatment burden for head and neck cancer patients.
 

• Lab address: UZ Gent, Department of Radiation Oncology, Corneel Heymanslaan 10, RTP, entrance 98, 9000 Gent
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• Emma Vander Stichele is interested to receive invitations for presentations or talks