UCLA Journal of Radiation Oncology APRIL 2022 - Flipbook - Page 28
UCLA RADIATION ONCOLOGY JOURNAL
$1.15 MILLION DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE GRANT:
IMPROVING RADIATION TREATMENT
OF PROSTATE CANCER
This project will have a major impact by improving radiotherapy delivery technology and
enhancing our understanding of the underlying biology of radioresistance
UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center
researcher Amar Kishan, MD, associate
professor in the department of Radiation
Oncology at UCLA Health, has received a
$1.15 million grant from the Department of
Defense (DoD) to spearhead a project that
explores important basic science concepts in
the treatment of prostate cancer: evaluating
and optimizing the physics of radiation
delivery and dissecting the biology of the
tumoral response to radiation.
of Radiation Oncology and Dr. Paul Boutros,
director of Cancer Data Science, will
evaluate two separate-but-linked hypotheses.
The first is that by allowing real-time
adjustments of radiotherapy dose delivery
based on changes in the shape and position
of the urethra and trigone, clinicians can
significantly decrease the proportion of
patients in whom these structures are
overdosed during radiotherapy. The second
hypothesis is that by evaluating the genome
of patients with viable or visible tumor two
years after radiotherapy, the group will
identify a significant increase in markers of
aggressiveness.
Prostate cancer is the most common nonskin cancer among American men, with
over 190,000 new cases diagnosed every
year. While radiation treatment offers a high
chance of cure, radiation’s impact on the
urinary system has remained a challenge
to minimize, as the prostatic urethra and
the trigone (part of the bladder neck) are
difficult for clinicians to visualize and can
change shape or position frequently during
radiotherapy. Meanwhile, a substantial
minority of men have a poor response to
radiation, with the cancer not responding
or the disease recurring years later. Though
radiorecurrent prostate cancer is common,
it remains poorly understood in large part
because the biology of the radiation response
(and thus mechanisms of radioresistance)
are unclear. This is critically important:
local failure after radiotherapy is a poor
prognostic marker and can portend a very
aggressive disease course.With the new
grant, Dr. Kishan –under the mentorship
of Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center
members Dr. Ke Sheng in the Department
“This project will have a major impact by
improving radiotherapy delivery technology
and enhancing our understanding of the
underlying biology of radioresistance,”said
Dr. Kishan. “This work will be directly
responsive to three of the DoD’s Prostate
Cancer Research Program Overarching
Challenges: improving quality of life to
enhance outcomes and overall wellness
for those impacted by prostate cancer,
developing treatments that improve
outcomes for men with lethal prostate
cancer, and defining the biology of lethal
prostate cancer to reduce death. This work
will address multiple important gaps in our
understanding of prostate cancer and will
lead to high impact findings.”
Grant information: W81XWH-22-1-0044 / Optimizing Radiation
Delivery and Dissecting the Response to Radiation for Patients
with Localized Prostate Cancer
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