RaySearch Laboratories AB has signed a cooperation agreement with Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in Boston, USA, covering research and development within the field of multi-criteria optimization for radiation therapy.
In all radiation treatments the clinician has to balance conflicting objectives such as obtaining a sufficiently high target dose to achieve tumor control, while ensuring that the dose to the surrounding healthy tissues is sufficiently low to minimize the risk for side effects. Multi-criteria optimization provides a tool for dealing with these tradeoffs in a stringent fashion.
The goal of the cooperation is to develop a software product that enables clinicians to explore and evaluate a representative set of treatment alternatives in a highly intuitive and efficient way. This has the potential to speed up the time-consuming treatment planning optimization process where currently the different parameters of a treatment plan are changed through trial and error until a satisfactory plan is found.
The MGH team is led by Harvard Medical School Professor, Dr. Thomas Bortfeld, who is Director of Physics Research at the Massachusetts General Hospital Department of Radiation Oncology.
“Our goal is to change the paradigm of radiation treatment planning by implementing our multi-criteria planning concepts in hospitals, for the direct benefit of the patients and the staff. In Raysearch we found the ideal partner to accomplish this goal. We are looking forward to a fruitful co-operation with the highly talented and professional people at Raysearch,” says Dr. Bortfeld.
Johan Löf, President of RaySearch, adds: “We are delighted to have entered this cooperation. Dr. Bortfeld is one of the world’s leading authorities in the radiation therapy research field and MGH is a great clinic offering a wide spectrum of advanced radiation treatments. I am convinced that the cutting edge research and solid clinical experience of MGH combined with our advanced software engineering skills will provide an excellent foundation for developing a very exciting product.”
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, CONTACT:
Johan Löf, President and CEO, RaySearch Laboratories AB
Telephone: +46 (0)8-545 061 30
johan.lof@raysearchlabs.com