November 2022 – Monthly portrait of a young researcher

Kim Møller Hochreuter, PhD student

Kim Hochreuter graduated as a Statistician from Aarhus University, prior to starting his PhD-project which is about the radiotherapy target definition in glioblastoma patients.

The primary aim of the PhD-project is to develop an alternative radiotherapy target that spares more healthy brain tissue and has superior recurrence coverage, compared to the current standard-of-care. The expected survival for glioblastoma patients has not changed for at least a decade and this is an attempt take a different approach to one of the treatment modalities.

The alternative target definition will be based on a mathematical growth model that attempts to predict the microscopic spread from the visible tumor, while taking surrounding tissue types into account and preferred growth along the white-matter tracts(WP12).

An accurate mapping of the brain is a prerequisite to properly develop such a growth model. The mapping of the brain is acquired by applying deep-learning based segmentation models to MR-images(WP11). Currently the project is finishing up developing the deep-learning segmentation models and is scheduled to be finalized in February.

Afterwards Kim will be going to Boston in the US to start working on the growth model. This work will be in collaboration with Thomas Bortfeld and his group from the department of radiation oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Additionally, Kim is member of the Trial Steering Committee of the PROTON-ESCALATION Trial for glioblastoma patients (WP10),  working on the statistical trial design. As such, Kim has developed a Time To Event – Continual Reassessment Method (TiTE-CRM) to guide patient allocation and to identify the maximum tolerated proton dose. Kim Hochreuter is a PhD student in the group of Jesper Kallehauge at the Danish Centre for Particle Therapy. The aims pursued in this group is the advancement of radiation treatment, identifying the right treatment for the right patient, improved radiation dose delivery through increased tumor control and reduced side effects.

Research focus:

• Radiation target definition for glioblastoma
• Personalized Radiotherapy
• Image segmentation

WP relation: WP 10, 11, 12.