Project

Standard therapy vs BoneOscopy

In standard particle radio-therapy, no functional imaging is available during treatment and up to 3 months post-treatment, which greatly limits standard clinical practice. Although X-ray CT imaging could be performed during treatment to acquire bone density information, metastatic bone patients are commonly affected by severe pain and have restricted mobility, making daily CT imaging unfeasible.

Currently, patient follow-up imaging only occurs 3 months after the end of treatment to assess the treatment outcome. This limits the knowledge of therapy effectiveness and prevents adaptations to the therapy plan for better tumour control.

BoneOscopy's scientific breakthrough

daily imaging during regular treatment to monitor calcium content and bone cancer regression without any additional dose

clinicians can make informed decisions and design a personalised plan tailored to the patient’s needs and response to treatment

Key objectives

The objective of BoneOscopy is to achieve a multidisciplinary breakthrough in the spectroscopy analysis of irradiated bone metastasis with particle beams.

We aim to develop BoneOscopy technology for in vivo spectroscopy of bone cancer and healthy bone during particle radiation therapy (PRT).

Work plan

BoneOscopy will develop advanced detectors and nanosecond electronics to allow time-of-flight spectroscopy of bone cancer without additional radiation. The project also includes the creation of 3D-printed bone phantoms that mimic real patient bone structures for testing purposes. Clinical validation will occur in controlled environments with patient-like models.

The BoneOscopy research methodology is characterised by its modular and parallel approach and is composed by 8 Work Packages (WP):

WP1

Technical specifications and user requirements

WP2

Development of 3D-printed
patient-like bone phantoms

WP3

Development of the
primary detector

WP4

Fibre trigger detector
and ASIC electronics

WP5

Monte Carlo estimation
of calcium signal

WP6

Detector integration and testing at Marburg Ion Therapy (MIT) facility

WP7

Communication, dissemination, and exploitation

WP8

Project coordination and innovation management