Iranian Scientists Develop Personal Planning Software for Treatment of Cancer Patients
“The aim of this research is to provide a software package for designing a treatment plan (including dosage and timing of chemotherapy and radiation therapy), specifically for patients with glioblastoma, which helps doctors and specialists as a decision aid in finding the optimal treatment,” said Amir Ebrahimizadeh, one of the researchers of the project at Amirkabir University of Technology.
He added that the standard treatment of glioblastoma is a combination of radiotherapy and temozolomide, noting that since separate planning of each of them leads to ignoring the effects of the other method and obtaining unreliable results, the present research is unique in its kind.
“Results of the research showed that performance of the personal treatment planning enjoys a significant superiority over the common standard treatment program,” Ebrahimizadeh said.
He added that simulation of the personal treatment program on 271 patients participating in the EORTC clinical trial shows that in 237 cases, following the optimal personal program compared to the standard program had a greater effect on reducing the tumor size and improving disease symptoms.
“Also, in 34 cases, the size of the tumor after following the personal treatment program and the standard program was equal,” the researcher said.
Glioblastoma (GBM), also referred to as a grade IV astrocytoma, is a fast-growing and aggressive brain tumor.
It invades the nearby brain tissue, but generally does not spread to distant organs. GBMs can arise in the brain de novo or evolve from lower-grade astrocytoma.
4155/Azra Varasteh
