Summary
The inaugural network conference took place on 20th June 2023 at Ramside Hall, Durham.
The conference was attended by over 100 delegates from the network, in person and remotely.
The programme covered radiographer, physics and clinical oncologists’ highlights from ESTRO 2023, technical and therapeutic innovations in radiotherapy and molecular radiotherapy, network SABR/SRS service developments and research and clinical trial activity across the network.
There were over 20 presentations during the mini-oral and oral presentations by radiotherapy professionals across the network, showcasing a huge amount of research and service development projects.
And we heard about the future potential of artificial intelligence, clinical coding and big data analysis and how this can improve outcomes for our patients.
The event feedback was extremely positive, with 95% of respondents in support of an annual conference/event.
The recommendation from the report is to invite nominations from network colleagues to form an organising committee to plan future events.
2. Technical and therapeutic innovations
The second session was an opportunity to share learning and experiences of implementing new technical and therapeutic innovations, as well as exploring network aspirations for acquiring new technology and equipment.
• Catherine Wilson, Clinical Lead Specialist Radiographer at JCUH, shared case studies demonstrating quality improvement in plan quality following implementation of surface-guided radiotherapy (SGRT) using Catalyst HD (CT-Rad) and plans to move to tattooless delivery and using SGRT for set up of all patients.
• Heads of Department from JCUH, Dr Clive Peedell, Consultant Clinical Oncologist, Claire Huntley, Radiotherapy Service Manager, and Kevin Burke, Head of Radiotherapy Physics, made a compelling case for having an MR Linac in the network, enabling better image quality, increased treatment accuracy, improved outcomes and fewer side effects for patients.
• Dr Darren Leaning, Consultant Clinical Oncologist, and Orla Hayman, Head of Medical Physics, both from JCUH, presented the developments with molecular radiotherapy treatments for metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer and the work progressing in the network to ensure the treatment is available to patients following NICE approval.
3. mini oral presentations
This was a great opportunity to hear about so many fantastic projects in the network. Strict time-keeping was observed to hear from all 20 network colleagues who were selected to present their research posters during their 2-minute slot.
A poll took place over lunch to award prizes for the best projects, with the runners up prize going to Dr Matt Anderson, Specialty Clinical Oncology Trainee at NuTH, for his project considering the feasibility of implementing VMAT planning for MSCC.
The prize for best mini oral presentation went to Jim Daniel, Lead Clinical Scientist at JCUH, for his project, “Treatment of prostate patients with an empty bladder protocol at JCUH”.
4. Network treatment delivery models for SABR/SRS
This was a very exciting session, where we heard updates about well-established regional SABR/SRS services as well as local progress with network plans to deliver newly commissioned SABR indications, ensuring patients receive the best standard of care and can access treatments closer to home.
• Dr Joanne Lewis, Consultant Clinical Oncologist at NuTH, presented remotely about progress and developments with the network SRS service (delivered at NCCC since 2015) and ensuring all patients across the network have equal access to SRS services.
• Dr David Wilson, Consultant Clinical Oncologist at South Tees, presented an overview of the research and evidence for SABR as a treatment option for hepatocellular carcinoma which has recently been commissioned by NHS England. The current position nationally with the rollout of SABR for locally advanced non-metastatic pancreatic carcinoma and local progress was also presented.
• Dr Ahmed Hashmi and Nick West, Consultant Clinical Oncologist and Clinical Scientist respectively at NuTH, highlighted the limitations of dosimetric and quality of life data to support the development of reirradiation services and the need for a more uniform, scientific approach with more consistent, better quality data to produce meaningful OARs and constraints.
• Dr Rachel Pearson, Consultant Clinical Oncologist at NuTH, presented work she has been involved in to develop SABR treatments for primary renal cell carcinoma patients, many of whom are asymptomatic and diagnosed incidentally.
5. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND BIG DATA
Dr Karen Horridge, Visiting Professor of Childhood Disability and Health from The University of Sunderland, was invited to speak about her work using SNOMED-CT clinical coding to improve outcomes for patients.
Dr Horridge gave an excellent and inspiring talk about her work to understand, and accurately record, the multifaceted needs of disabled children and their families, using SNOMED-CT to ensure consistent use of the same terms across all care settings and empowering patients and their families in care planning. The take-home messages about the benefits of using SNOMED-CT were highlighted and the need to harmonise terminologies to allow for comparisons across settings, over time and across conditions with all needs carefully identified and documented as the first step in the care plan to address them.
There is huge potential for improving equity of access and equality of outcomes within radiotherapy services by capturing accurate population health data in this way.
Dr Sam Warren, Consultant Clinical Scientist at NuTH, followed with another inspiring presentation about her work to use MVision and ProKnow to add value to real world data and how this can help us to improve outcomes for patients.
Sam presented evidence to support the use of AI auto-segmenting software and MVision which is being used by all centres in the network and is the most highly rated software package available. The implementation of MVision has already supported changes to breast planning techniques at Newcastle.
Recent advancements in technology and automation at Newcastle were summarised, moving from CT-MR fusion and manual contouring, to the implementation of an MR-only pathway and very recently, implementing an automated planning technique. Sam demonstrated how easy it is to compare data from different techniques and cohorts within ProKnow and invited colleagues to explore the software to find the answers for themselves.
Hopefully, colleagues will take on the challenge!
JJ Wyatt, Lead Clinical Scientist at NUTH
JJ presented his research study entitled “PET-MR only radiotherapy for pelvic cancers”.
JJ highlighted the challenges with imaging the pelvis and the barriers to using PET-MR-only radiotherapy.
The aim of JJ’s PhD thesis was to develop and evaluate technical solutions to enable PET-MR-only radiotherapy for pelvic cancers.
In conclusion, the study found a model of radiotherapy hardware to reduce PET activity loss to <3% with statistically significant differences in GTV SUV measurements. The study also found a sCT solution with negligible dose differences ≤ 0.4% and that sCTAC is clinically equivalent to CTAC with GTV SUV differences ≤ 1%.
The results from the study open the way to developing and validating methods of using quantitative PET-MR for radiotherapy delineation and dose painting within clinical trials to determine whether the potential benefits of this approach translate into clinical benefit for patients.
acknowledgements
Huge thanks on behalf of the Northern Radiotherapy Network team to network Heads of Departments for their support to host this event and to enable their staff to attend; without it, the conference would not have happened.
Special thanks for Dr John Frew and Dr Rachel Pearson for their ideas and enthusiasm to develop an exciting agenda and encourage their colleagues to attend.
Thank you to everyone who agreed to present and share their knowledge and expertise across the network.
Thank you to our event sponsors whose representatives attended in person to showcase their latest products, equipment, services and technology.
And finally, thank you to everyone who attended and contributed to what was a fantastic day.
We hope to build on this in the future and look forward to more exciting network events.