Cancer is a leading cause of death that affects numerous people at every age and their relatives. In recent years, there has been a tremendous advancement in imaging and biotechnology technologies and techniques for aiding in the detection, diagnosis, and treatment of cancer. Emerging Developments and Practices in Oncology provides research on recent advances in oncology aiming to improve early detection and personalized treatment of cancer. While highlighting applied methods of therapy, such as body radiotherapy, chemoradiotherapy, and immunotherapy, readers learn about the transforming approach to oncology in modern medicine and new technologies used to diagnose and treat cancer. This book is an important resource for medical trainees, graduate students, active practitioners, researchers, and clinical scientists seeking current research on oncology trends and applications.

This book explores outcome modeling in cancer from a data-centric perspective to enable a better understanding of complex treatment response, to guide the design of advanced clinical trials, and to aid personalized patient care and improve their quality of life. It contains coverage of the relevant data sources available for model construction (panomics), ranging from clinical or preclinical resources to basic patient and treatment characteristics, medical imaging (radiomics), and molecular biological markers such as those involved in genomics, proteomics and metabolomics. It also includes discussions on the varying methodologies for predictive model building with analytical and data-driven approaches. This book is primarily intended to act as a tutorial for newcomers to the field of outcome modeling, as it includes in-depth how-to recipes on modeling artistry while providing sufficient instruction on how such models can approximate the physical and biological realities of clinical treatment. The book will also be of value to seasoned practitioners as a reference on the varying aspects of outcome modeling and their current applications. Features: Covers top-down approaches applying statistical, machine learning, and big data analytics and bottom-up approaches using first principles and multi-scale techniques, including numerical simulations based on Monte Carlo and automata techniques Provides an overview of the available software tools and resources for outcome model development and evaluation, and includes hands-on detailed examples throughout Presents a diverse selection of the common applications of outcome modeling in a wide variety of areas: treatment planning in radiotherapy, chemotherapy and immunotherapy, utility-based and biomarker applications, particle therapy modeling, oncological surgery, and the design of adaptive and SMART clinical trials

This book explores outcome modeling in cancer from a data-centric perspective to enable a better understanding of complex treatment response, to guide the design of advanced clinical trials, and to aid personalized patient care and improve their quality of life. It contains coverage of the relevant data sources available for model construction (panomics), ranging from clinical or preclinical resources to basic patient and treatment characteristics, medical imaging (radiomics), and molecular biological markers such as those involved in genomics, proteomics and metabolomics. It also includes discussions on the varying methodologies for predictive model building with analytical and data-driven approaches. This book is primarily intended to act as a tutorial for newcomers to the field of outcome modeling, as it includes in-depth how-to recipes on modeling artistry while providing sufficient instruction on how such models can approximate the physical and biological realities of clinical treatment. The book will also be of value to seasoned practitioners as a reference on the varying aspects of outcome modeling and their current applications. Features: Covers top-down approaches applying statistical, machine learning, and big data analytics and bottom-up approaches using first principles and multi-scale techniques, including numerical simulations based on Monte Carlo and automata techniques Provides an overview of the available software tools and resources for outcome model development and evaluation, and includes hands-on detailed examples throughout Presents a diverse selection of the common applications of outcome modeling in a wide variety of areas: treatment planning in radiotherapy, chemotherapy and immunotherapy, utility-based and biomarker applications, particle therapy modeling, oncological surgery, and the design of adaptive and SMART clinical trials

This book provides a complete overview of the role of machine learning in radiation oncology and medical physics, covering basic theory, methods, and a variety of applications in medical physics and radiotherapy. An introductory section explains machine learning, reviews supervised and unsupervised learning methods, discusses performance evaluation, and summarizes potential applications in radiation oncology. Detailed individual sections are then devoted to the use of machine learning in quality assurance; computer-aided detection, including treatment planning and contouring; image-guided radiotherapy; respiratory motion management; and treatment response modeling and outcome prediction. The book will be invaluable for students and residents in medical physics and radiation oncology and will also appeal to more experienced practitioners and researchers and members of applied machine learning communities.