On Tuesday 14 April at 15:00, Kristoffer Moos defends his PhD dissertation entitled “Probabilistic Modeling of Occult Lymphatic Metastases for Patient-Tailored Radiotherapy in Head and Neck Cancer”.

Definitive radiotherapy for head and neck cancer often includes extensive elective nodal irradiation to account for the risk of occult disease. Although this approach provides excellent tumor control, it also increases irradiation of healthy tissue and contributes substantially to long-term treatment-related side-effects that may markedly impair quality of life. Since recurrences in electively irradiated volumes are rare, current guideline-based target volumes are likely larger than necessary for many patients. The aim of this thesis was therefore to investigate whether elective treatment volumes can be tailored to the individual patient based on the risk of microscopic spread og tumor cells to the lymph nodes. Overall, the work shows that a more risk-based and individualized approach may reduce unnecessary irradiation of healthy tissue and help clarify the balance between tumor control and treatment-related side effects. The findings therefore highlight a promising path toward more personalized and less toxic radiotherapy for head and neck cancer.

The summary is written by the PhD student.

The defence is public and takes place in Auditorium C114-101, Entrance C, C110, Aarhus University Hospital. Please see the press release for more information. 

Contact

PhD student Kristoffer Moos
Mail: krimoo@clin.au.dk 
Phone: 60693691

Read full press release