MikeLigalig.com

By Robert Langreth
Forbes.com

Radical researchers aim to customize cancer treatment with computer simulations.

In her laboratory at the University of Washington, mathematician Kristin Rae Swanson peers into the future of brain cancer patients--on her computer screen. She has created a software program that uses data from magnetic resonance imaging scans to simulate how fast a patient's brain tumor is likely to spread. She can pinpoint with uncanny precision where a tumor will grow months ahead of time and predict how long a patient is likely to live under various treatment scenarios.

She first proposed the idea ten years ago and "was laughed out of the room" by skeptical doctors who figured brain tumor growth was too erratic to predict, Swanson says. But she has developed an equation that takes into account how fast tumors divide and disperse through brain tissue and can predict their path. It takes three hours on a PC to run a patient's data through this simulation. She has found that her model is accurate in predicting cancer progression in 350 patients, including 30 still undergoing treatment.

Swanson, who was inspired to go into cancer research after her father died of lung cancer, hopes her simulation will lead to a new generation of customized brain cancer treatments. Right now brain glioblastoma patients typically get once-daily radiation for six weeks. But her computer model predicts that some slow-growing tumors could be treated just as well with less-frequent radiation, sparing patients bad side effects. Others with fast-proliferating tumors would live longer with smaller doses of radiation two or three times a day. A human trial with customized radiation therapy could begin next year.

Linkback: https://tubagbohol.mikeligalig.com/index.php?topic=15525.0