# Quantitative Lung Function Imaging to Reduce Toxicity for patients treated with Radiation and Immunotherapy

> **NIH NIH UH3** · THOMAS JEFFERSON UNIVERSITY · 2024 · $223,430

## Abstract

The proposed project is in the field of thoracic oncology. Lung cancer patients that get treated with
radiotherapy and immunotherapy are at risk of developing serious lung side-effects, and in particular,
pneumonitis. Pneumonitis results in cough, shortness of breath, and can be fatal. Pneumonitis, is a serious,
overlapping toxicity that can results as a function of both radiotherapy and immunotherapy. Pneumonitis has a
significant impact on patient quality of life and limits the aggressive combinations of therapies that can be
evaluated in clinical trials. Strategies are needed that can reduce pneumonitis rates for patients treated with
aggressive combinations of radiotherapy and immunotherapy in clinical trials. A novel lung function imaging
modality has been developed that uses data acquired as part of routine clinical care for lung cancer patients
along with software techniques to innovatively calculate lung function maps. The novel lung function imaging
modality has been incorporated into radiotherapy through a personalized, functional avoidance radiation
treatment paradigm. The idea of functional avoidance is to design radiation treatment plans that reduce dose to
functional portions of the lung with the hypothesis that reduced dose to functional lung will lead to decreased
side-effects from treatment and improved quality of life. Imaging-based functional avoidance provides a
promising method for significantly reducing toxicity for lung cancer patients who get treated with combinations of
radiotherapy and immunotherapy. The problem is that the novel lung function imaging methods have not been
developed and evaluated with immunotherapy added to the treatment paradigm.
 The purpose of our project is to develop novel methods that enable the evaluation of imaging-based
functional avoidance for patients enrolled in radiotherapy and immunotherapy clinical trials. Our study will
develop methods that provide a complete picture of lung function (perfusion imaging in addition to ventilation),
evaluate the most stable and clinically relevant form of lung function imaging, and perform a sensitivity analysis
of how various functional parameters effect radiation treatment plans for patients treated with radiotherapy and
immunotherapy. Our study will use data from 4 clinical trials to evaluate whether the proposed imaging framework
can reduce toxicity for lung cancer patients in the setting of immunotherapy added to the treatment paradigm.
 More aggressive combinations of radiotherapy and immunotherapy are going to continue to evolve and
be investigated in clinical trials. Pulmonary toxicity will be a serious clinical limitation for these studies. Our project
proposes a convenient, inexpensive imaging modality to reduce toxicity and has the potential to significantly
improve quality of life of lung cancer patients treated with radiotherapy and immunotherapy. The impact of our
imaging framework is that it can 1) reduce treatment-related side-effects for pa...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10925415
- **Project number:** 5UH3CA247605-04
- **Recipient organization:** THOMAS JEFFERSON UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Edward Castillo
- **Activity code:** UH3 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $223,430
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2021-06-01 → 2026-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10925415

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10925415, Quantitative Lung Function Imaging to Reduce Toxicity for patients treated with Radiation and Immunotherapy (5UH3CA247605-04). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10925415. Licensed CC0.

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