Peter Mac researcher awarded ANZUP's Below the Belt Grant for innovative project
2 min read 12 July 2023
Peter Mac researcher Dr James Buteau was awarded an Australian and New Zealand Urogenital and Prostate (ANZUP) Below the Belt Research Award this week for an innovative project using artificial intelligence (AI).
Dr Buteau’s new project will use AI to create a one-click solution for prostate cancer segmentation on PET scans. Currently, specialised and expensive software is needed to measure the PET biomarkers with most medical centres needing to use a time-consuming manual contouring process that can give different results between users. This limits routine use of the PET biomarkers in most hospitals.
Dr Buteau, who received his award at the ANZUP Annual Scientific Meeting, will use this grant to build on his landmark ANZUP TheraP (ANZUP 1603) randomised controlled trial of Lutetium-177-PSMA that improves outcomes for patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer.
This form of liquid radiation is injected into a vein, goes into prostate cancer cells and delivers highly targeted radiation, while giving little radiation to normal organs.
“I am very proud and excited to have received this grant on behalf of a brilliant team,” Dr Buteau said.
“This new project will utilise AI to create and validate a single-click solution to measure the PET biomarkers.
“It’s an innovative approach that could improve access worldwide and measure accurate PET biomarker values regardless of a centre’s expertise or location.”
The project, under Prof Michael Hofman’s supervision and in collaboration with Peter Mac medical physicists Dr Price Jackson and Lachlan McIntosh, addresses a limitation from Dr Buteau’s TheraP biomarker analysis that was published in Lancet Oncology last year.
Together with lead investigators Professor Hofman, Professor Andrew Martin, Professor Ian Davis and the TheraP team, their biomarker analysis demonstrated, for the first time, that high tumour uptake on the PSMA PET scan is a predictive biomarker for response to Lutetium-177-PSMA. They also demonstrated FDG PET is a prognostic biomarker.
“The PET scans are like a window into the future, done before giving the Lutetium-177-PSMA,” Dr Buteau said.
“PSMA PET scans help us identify patients with exquisitely high chances of responding specifically to Lutetium-177-PSMA.
“The FDG PET scan is also a tool that can help find patients who would have worse outcomes and may need treatment intensification, such as a combination of Lutetium-177-PSMA with another active therapy.”
The Below the Belt Research Fund provides much needed seed funding to support ANZUP members to progress new trial ideas to the point of becoming full scale studies.