Leo Cancer Care, Imperial College launch upright radiotherapy tracking study

Leo Cancer Care has teamed with Imperial College London, the LhARA collaboration and Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust on a PhD project to test real-time tumour tracking and dose verification for upright radiotherapy. The work could help prove whether upright treatment can deliver the accuracy clinicians need while improving patient comfort and enabling more compact systems.

Why it matters: - Upright radiotherapy could make treatment more comfortable for patients and support smaller, more efficient radiotherapy systems. - The collaboration targets a key barrier to wider adoption: proving that upright treatment can match conventional accuracy and dose confidence. - Radiotherapy is recommended for more than half of all people diagnosed with cancer and contributes to around 40% of cancer cures worldwide.

What happened: - Leo Cancer Care announced a research collaboration with Imperial College London, the LhARA collaboration and Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust. - The project will study real-time tumour tracking and radiation dose verification for upright radiotherapy. - The work will run as a collaborative PhD project through MultiSci, Imperial’s Medical Research Council-funded Doctoral Training Partnership. - MultiSci’s theme for the project is “Realising the Power of Big Data to Improve Health.”

The details: - The research will test how advanced X-ray imaging, artificial intelligence and automation can monitor tumour motion and verify radiation delivery while patients are treated upright. - The project will look at continuous X-ray-based tumour position monitoring alongside simultaneous dose measurement. - Researchers will examine whether AI and automated image analysis can improve the speed and reliability of treatment verification without reducing clinical accuracy. - The goal includes the first demonstration of real-time tumour tracking and dose verification specifically in an upright radiotherapy setting. - Leo Cancer Care will provide access to its Crawley research and development facilities, including a photon radiotherapy test bunker and a linear accelerator photon source. - Those facilities are intended to support experimental validation under realistic upright treatment conditions. - The project is designed to build a pathway from academic research toward possible future clinical implementation. - Results will be shared through peer-reviewed publications, scientific conferences and collaborations across academic, clinical and industrial partners.

Between the lines: - The collaboration links an industrial developer with academic and clinical partners to de-risk a new treatment format before wider use. - The focus on upright treatment suggests Leo Cancer Care is trying to move the concept from engineering promise toward evidence clinicians can trust. - The research may also inform future iterations of Leo Cancer Care’s technologies, not just the PhD project itself.

What people said: - Tracy Underwood, Leo Cancer Care’s head of translational research, said the company feels fortunate to bring in expertise from Imperial College London, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and the LhARA collaboration. - Dr. Matt Williams, consultant clinical oncologist at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and a LhARA collaborator, said the work could improve accuracy in modern radiotherapy and outcomes across patients. - Professor Laki Buluwela, director of MultiSci MRC DTP at Imperial College London, said the partnership supports training for the next generation of scientists. - Professor Ken Long, who co-leads LhARA development at Imperial, said the collaboration could help create compact, automated radiotherapy tailored to the patient.

What's next: - The PhD project will generate evidence on safe and accurate upright radiotherapy delivery. - Findings are expected to guide future development of Leo Cancer Care’s technologies. - The team plans to move results into the wider research community through publications, conferences and partner collaborations. - Leo Cancer Care on LinkedIn