Research we fund

Identifying factors that can predict men’s response to radiotherapy

What you need to know 

  • We’re funding Professor Bill Nailon and Professor Duncan McLaren to use advanced computing techniques to analyse data from more than 10,000 men diagnosed with prostate cancer and treated with radiotherapy. 
  • They will use this vast amount of information to identify characteristics which can predict how men will respond to radiotherapy treatment – for example, how likely they are to respond poorly or experience side effects from treatment. 
  • Identifying these characteristics early could help doctors to adapt radiotherapy treatment for each individual, resulting in better outcomes for men.
Through meticulous analysis of data from each patient’s unique healthcare history, we believe we will discover new relationships between a man’s medical history and how well he responds to radiotherapy. By identifying these important factors, we aim to improve radiotherapy treatment for men in the future.
Professor Bill Nailon

Using data to predict treatment response

For men with prostate cancer, radiotherapy can be an effective curative treatment. However, some men still see their cancer return and often experience long-term side effects. This could be improved if we knew in advance how each individual was likely to respond to treatment based on their medical history.

Professor Nailon and Professor McLaren will explore a new way of tackling prostate cancer using patient data and artificial intelligence. By applying artificial intelligence to population level data, the team hope to identify previously unrecognised factors that can predict how individual men will respond to their radiotherapy treatment. 

Finding clues, building evidence 

The team will then develop machine learning models that can analyse the healthcare records of over 10,000 men who have been treated with radiotherapy in Scotland. The models will be able to correlate medical conditions and lifestyle factors with the outcomes of radiotherapy treatment. This will then be analysed to see if these factors are predictive of response to radiotherapy.

Creating a tool to improve treatment outcomes 

By the end of the project, the team will have developed an anonymised, population- level database containing valuable information about radiotherapy treatment in Scotland. 

There is currently no existing resource of this scale and in order to support further research, the tool will be made available to other research groups. 

In the long term, the work and tools from this project should help doctors tailor the dose and type of radiotherapy to each individual man, which should improve outcomes from treatment. The tool will also be used to support further research into prostate cancer as well as other types of cancer.

Grant information

Reference – MA-CT20-010   

Researcher – Professor Bill Nailon and Professor Duncan McLaren

Institution – Edinburgh Cancer Research Centre 

Award - £487,187.00