MSc Medical Physics in Cancer Radiation Therapy / Course details

This unit will provide the students with the following knowledge and practical skills:

• The unit will examine different patient pathways for cancers with contrasting treatment strategies (breast/prostate vs lung/oesophageal) and outcomes (curative intent vs palliative).
• Provide understanding of the importance of the patient experience to the cancer care process. Reinforce why modern healthcare is patient centred.
• Different approaches to implementing new radiotherapy techniques and interventions will be introduced: clinical trials, pragmatic studies, quality improvement programmes, and schemes such as commissioning through evaluation and the R-IDEAL framework. Students will critically appraise each approach and argue when each might be the most appropriate method to use.
• Students will gain practical experience of designing, justifying and implementing an appropriate evaluation approach for a theoretical new radiotherapy intervention.
• Different approaches and technologies for personalising radiotherapy care will be described and appraised, including different forms of treatment adaptation (e.g. Image guidance, MR-Linac, Ethos). Detailed knowledge of online adaptation workflows will be evaluated.
• The governance and regulatory frameworks radiotherapy healthcare professionals are require to operate within (IRR, IR(ME)R, GCP, HRA, MHRA) will be introduced using exemplar case studies to illustrate their application.
• Visits to the MR-Linac to witness treatment adaptation in practice will be arranged (subject to clinical workload).
• Students will synthesise their knowledge and apply within the assessments. Building from practical experience in the radiotherapy module, students will develop and plan a treatment adaptation strategy using an open-source treatment planning system for a range of scenarios.

This unit aims to provide students with an understanding of the different routes (e.g. clinical trial, pragmatic evaluation, Quality Improvement) by which innovations in care can be translated into clinical practice, and how modern radiotherapy technologies (e.g. image guidance, MR-Linac) can be used to personalise patient care. Students will be able to appraise the different routes by which changes in care can be implemented and evaluated, and different workflows that can be used for the personalised management of longitudinal changes in patient anatomy and disease.

Students will be able to critically compare and contrast different adaptive radiotherapy approaches and understand potential future developments. Students will be able to use their knowledge to design an approach to evaluate a theoretical change in clinical practice.

The following learning and teaching processes will be utilised: Classroom based teaching, interactive practical sessions, formative assessments, interactive group based discussion and tutorial sessions, on-line resources, independent study, facility tours and demonstrations.

Students should/will be able to:

• Appraise and recognise the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches of translating new interventions in radiotherapy.
• Appreciation of the regulatory and ethical framework for evaluating new clinical techniques.
• Evaluate the role of adaptive radiotherapy approaches for different disease sites.
• Understand the importance of patient centric care and research.

Students should/will be able to:

• Critically compare and contrast pragmatic and formal clinical trial design.
• Examine differences in data collection practices across different evaluation strategies.
• Evaluate approaches to treatment personalisation and treatment adaptation in radiotherapy.
• Identify relative benefits of different treatment adaptation strategies.

Students should/will be able to:

• Synthesis and application of knowledge to design a (simulated) clinical study protocol.
• Apply knowledge to implement appropriate treatment adaptation approaches.

Students should/will be able to:

• Evaluation of clinical trial design choices.
• Practical experience of using and evaluating radiotherapy adaptive planning techniques.

Summative 1: 50%

Design a protocol to introduce a theoretical new intervention to the radiotherapy workflow.

Students will work in small groups and will present and justify their design to a 'funding panel' who will decide if the presented arguments are persuasive enough to meet funding criteria.

Summative 2: 50%

Development of an adaptation strategy for different clinical scenarios where anatomy and/or the tumour have changed from the original plan.

Treatment plan and short report (<1,000 words) justifying the chosen approach to an MDT/clinical team.

Summative 1 - Feedback based on defined marking scheme will be shared with the group. Expectations for participation for each student will be defined in the marking scheme.

Summative 2 - Students will receive feedback against the defined marking criteria for both the plan and the corresponding report.