AI & Big Data

AI & Big Data

Chairs:

Remi Nout, Radiation Oncologist, Erasmus University Medical Center Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Jon Cacicedo, Radiation Oncologist, Cruces University Hospital/Biobizkaia Health Research Institute, Spain

Speakers:

Stine Korreman; Medical Physicist at Aarhus University Hospital, Denmark, ESTRO AI Focus group Chair
Wouter van Elmpt, Physicist at Maastro clinic, The Netherlands. ESTRO AI Focus group member
Christian Rønn Hansen; Medical Physicist, Odense University Hospital, Denmark, ESTRO HN Focus group member
Alexandra Taylor, Radiation Oncologist, the Royal Marsden, UK, ESTRO Gynae Focus group core expert

Target Audience

Professionals who are interested in further developing the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in radiotherapy, including radiation/clinical oncologists, medical physicists, both at their early career or senior professionals. Computer scientists, biomedical engineers, and data scientists may also be interested in participating.

Description:

AI is being rapidly introduced in our world, while major gains are expected in our field much is unknown as to its optimal application. This topic is timely and important because AI is moving from experimental applications into daily clinical practice. Radiation oncologists and related professionals need to be prepared to understand, evaluate, adopt, and responsibly integrate these technologies into their workflows. Understanding both the clinical potential and the regulatory challenges will be key to ensuring that AI contributes safely and effectively to improved patient outcomes.

This breakout is developed together with ESTRO’s AI Focus Group and aims to bridge developments in AI towards clinical application. Since AI has a very broad application and to reach sufficient in-depth discussion and related output, this first Clinical Workshop will focus on the use of AI for auto-contouring. This is not limited to AI for contouring of OAR but also solutions for target volume contouring. We anticipate much time for discussion and expect active contribution from participants. This workshop will be a platform to connect researchers involved in clinical application of AI, and will serve as a starting point for assessment of needs, gaps and priorities for future developments. The workshop may lead to the development of guidelines or further planning of research.

Potential Outcomes

Outcome 1: Establish (drafting) preliminary guidelines – Participants will collaboratively define key (quality) aspects and best practices for incorporating AI auto-contouring into the clinic, including e.g. ‘What a clinician needs to know’, creating a first draft of guidelines that can later be refined by a dedicated expert committee.
Outcome 2: Identification of priorities for research, development and validation – The group could define the most urgent research needs (e.g., validation of AI auto-contouring in diverse patient populations). This would help direct future collaborative studies and multicenter trials.
Outcome 3: Creation of a multidisciplinary expert task force – A tangible outcome could be the formation of a working group composed of radiation oncologists, medical physicists, data scientists, and legal/ethical experts. This team could continue developing frameworks in collaboration with the AI Focus Group for clinical implementation, regulatory compliance, impact on changes in skills and training, and ethical oversight of AI in radiotherapy.