Applying machine learning to radiotherapy planning for head & neck cancer DeepMind

We're excited to announce a new research partnership with the Radiotherapy Department at University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which provides world-leading cancer treatment. Head and neck cancer in general affects over 11,000 patients in the UK alone each year. Advances in treatment such as radiotherapy have improved survival rates, but because of the high number of delicate structures concentrated in this area of the body, clinicians have to plan treatment extremely carefully to ensure none of the vital nerves or organs are damaged. That makes a cancer at the back of the mouth or in the sinuses, for example, particularly hard to treat with radiotherapy. So with clinicians in UCLH's world-leading radiotherapy team we are exploring whether machine learning methods could reduce the amount of time it takes to plan radiotherapy treatment for such cancers.