Benjamin George and Lauryn Bailey, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine students, won trainee research prizes for their work in non-small cell lung cancer. Their work will be presented at the Radiological Society of North America’s (RSNA) annual meeting later this month.
George’s work focused on studying the role of invasive nodal staging and 18F-FDG-PET avidity in the prognostication of patients undergoing stereotactic body radiotherapy for non-small cell lung cancer.
Bailey’s work included the development of a multi-modal deep learning framework for outcome prediction in non-small cell lung cancer undergoing stereotactic body radiotherapy.
Under the mentorship of Tithi Biswas, Tarun Podder, Raymond Muzic Jr. and Yilun Sun, George and Bailey started working on a large institutional project in the radiation oncology department at University Hospitals Seidman Cancer Center in June 2021.
The project aims to analyze the outcome of non-small cell lung cancer (the most common form of lung cancer) when treated with stereotactic body radiotherapy, a radiation technique that involves complex dosimetric planning aiming to deliver a curative dose of radiation in five fractions or less.
The group also included three other CWRU School of Medicine students: Samar Bhat, Kireem Nam and George Saieed. The work was led by physics residents Ala Amini and Theodore Arsenault, and medical resident Atallah Baydoun.
Last year, Bhat and Bailey each secured a CWRU School of Medicine summer research grant through the project. The group’s work also was recognized in the 2021 American Medical Association Health Systems Science challenge. This year, the group had seven abstracts accepted for presentation in three national meetings.
George and Bailey will receive an award plaque and a $1,000 RSNA Trainee Research Prize at the annual meeting.