Background

Radiotherapy is increasingly used to treat lesions in the vicinity of the heart, or even in the heart itself. Confusingly, while the heart can be the target site for treatment, it is also sensitive to radiation-induced side-effects. High-fidelity anatomical and functional cardiac MRI is thus needed at the time of treatment to irradiate the lesion with high precision. A new generation of hybrid MRI + radiotherapy linear accelerator (MR-linac) devices has made instantaneous MRI-guidance during radiation delivery a clinical reality at UMC Utrecht. However, the additional dynamic complexity and frequency of cardiac motion and function is still largely ignored in radiotherapy due to a lack of MRI sequences suitable for cardiac imaging on the MR-linac.

Project and role description

This vacancy is part of the MEGAHERTZ (MRI-Enhanced and Guided Adaptive HEart RadioTherapy) project, which is funded by NWO and co-funded by industrial partners through the open technology programme. The aim of MEGAHERTZ is to combine cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) imaging with MRI-guided adaptive radiotherapy to dramatically improve cardiac radiotherapy. You will first develop MRI sequences for the MR-linac for a range of cardiac imaging applications including visualisation and quantification of the cardiorespiratory motion and quantitative mapping of tissue properties (i.e., parametric mapping). You will then test all newly developed sequences in novel phantoms, volunteers, and patients.