An Innovative CFD-based Dosimetry and Pre-treatment Planning Platform to Support Personalized Transarterial Therapies for Liver Cancer

Condition(s) studied

Investigational drug(s) / intervention(s)

Endovascular treatment: Endovascular treatment

Study summary

Transarterial radioembolization (TARE) is a key treatment option for patients with unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), a primary form of liver cancer. TARE is a minimally invasive therapy in which radioactive microspheres are delivered through a microcatheter near the tumour into the liver's blood vessels. Although TARE can significantly improve survival, treatment outcomes remain variable and difficult to predict, mainly because of complex liver vasculature and unpredictable distribution of radioactive microspheres due to uncertain parameters such as catheter tip location, catheter orientation, and injection velocity.

The long-term goal would be to make these treatments more predictable and effective by developing a patient-specific pre-treatment planning platform. Blood flow and microsphere transport will be modelled in a digital model of the patient-specific hepatic arterial tree (based on clinical imaging) using computational fluid dynamics (CFD), in combination with Monte Carlo-based radiation dosimetry. Using CFD simulations, we will investigate how variations in treatment parameters influence the microsphere distribution, aiming to better understand their role in treatment variability. This will allow us to predict the dose distribution of a certain treatment and determine potentially a more optimal set of treatment parameters. This research contributes to the broader field of cancer research by laying the foundations for a digital tool for personalized pre-treatment planning. The insights gained could support interventional radiologists in optimizing treatment planning, improving tumor targeting, and minimizing radiation exposure to healthy liver tissue in future TARE procedures.

Eligibility

Primary outcome measure(s)

• Accuracy and validation of CFD models — 4 years
  Correlation coefficient between CFD-predicted and measured blood flow velocity, pressure distribution and particle distribution in an in vitro set-up
• Identification of important procedure parameters — 4 years
  Identification of key procedure parameters (e.g., catheter location, catheter direction, injection velocity) using the computational framework.
• Uncertainty on dose to tumor/healthy tissue — 4 years
  Quantifying the uncertainty on the calculated dose inside the patient due to the variation of the system parameters.

Trial sites (1)

More University Hospital, Ghent trials in Belgium

Other trials for the same condition