Curietherapies 2023: Advanced Targeting for Personalized Patient Care

J Joanne Alfieri is an associate professor in the Department of Oncology, McGill University since February 2012. She is a radiation oncologist who specializes in the treatment of gynaecological and gastrointestinal malignancies at the McGill University Health Centre. Dr. Alfieri earned her medical degree and her post-graduate radiation oncology training at McGill. She completed a Post-graduate Fellowship in Gynaecology Oncology and MRI-guided Brachytherapy at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne, Australia.  Dr. Alfieri is the lead for the gynecological site group as well as the brachytherapy lead for the MUHC. She initiated the MRI-guided brachytherapy program at McGill, and her current research interests lie in the evaluation of this program with the aim of improving the long-term outcomes and minimizing treatment-related toxicity in gynaecological cancer patients as well as in investigating alternate treatment options for locally advanced cervix cancer.  She has a keen interest in medical education and is the post-graduate residency training Program Director for radiation oncology since February 2015 as well as Associate Chair (Education) for the Gerald Bronfman Department of Oncology of McGill University where oversees undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate training programs in medical, surgical and radiation oncology. Merci!      

I grew up in Sherbrooke Qc, did my Medical School at the Université de Sherbrooke (the family thing to do, my dad, 2 of my uncles and 2 of my cousins trained in the med school), then residency at Université Laval in Quebec City, then fellowship in GYN Radiation Oncology in Vancouver (completed in 2010).  I had planned to go back to Quebec but met partner Corey and stayed in BC since. I worked at the Cancer Clinics in Surrey and Abbotsford for 10 months then accepted an offer from Kelowna.  I opened the MRI Brachy program for cervix cancer along the way, was the GYNRO Lead for several years, the GURO lead for several other years, Department Head in Kelowna for almost 7 years, on the executive board for the RO Examination at the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada for 8 years, on the executive board of the Two Worlds Cancer Collaboration (worked in India for several years) and led several transitions like the ETHOS, Kamloops clinic and Elekta Brachytherapy in BC. I have a 4 year-old son (Sasha) and he is the reason behind my decision to move back to Quebec city in April 2023.  I look forward to reconnect with my colleagues in the province of Quebec.

Dr. Bahoric completed his medical school in Rijeka, Croatia. He completed his Royal College Fellowship Program in Radiation oncology in Toronto. He works as staff radiation oncologist at the Jewish General Hospital in Montreal. He is assistant professor at McGill University. Apart from teaching he is involved in various administrative activities. His areas of interest and expertise are the gynecological, genitourinary and hematological malignancies. Particularly, he is interested in brachytherapy. He offers both intracavitary and interstitial for gynecological malignancies. He performs adjuvant accelerated partial breast irradiation via interstitial brachytherapy. Dr. Bahoric participates in nationwide studies in prostate cancer. As part of the studies he offers and performs HDR prostate brachytherapy. He is past president of Canadian Brachytherapy Group and is still active participant in this group.

Dr. Beaulieu is a full professor, Director of the CAMPEP graduate program and also Director of the Cancer Research Centre at Université Laval. He served on the Board of the Canadian Organization of Medical Physicists as President Elect, President and Past President (2010-2016). He is a member of the AAPM Brachytherapy Subcommittee as well as two associated Working Groups (Robotics and Clinical Applications), is the Chair of TG317 on tracking technology for brachytherapy, a member of the ESTRO In Vivo dosimetry working group, was the Chair of TG-186 and until recently led the AAPM/ESTRO/ABG Working Group on Model-Based Dose Calculations in Brachytherapy. He has mentored over 150 highly qualified personals, published 220 peer-reviewed manuscripts and 465 refereed abstracts at national and international meetings. He is a recognized expert on topics related to scintillation dosimetry and brachytherapy. Luc

Dr. Jean-Pierre Bissonnette is the Associate Head for Professional and Academic Affairs for the Department of Medical Physics at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, where he has been employed since 2003. He obtained his M.Sc. from McGill University and his Ph.D. from the University of Western Ontario, in 1996. He is an Associate Professor at the University of Toronto Departments of Radiation Oncology and Medical Biophysics.With 75 peer-reviewed publications, Dr. Bissonnette has been active in several areas relevant to radiotherapy, including quality assurance and patient safety, high-precision radiotherapy for the brain and the lung, post-graduate education, and using PET, CT, and CBCT images to monitor treatment response for lung cancer patients. He chaired the AAPM TG-179 task group on CT-based image-guidance. Current research topics include dose reconstruction based on image-guidance images, image-based adaptation of therapy, and using statistical tools to rationalize and limit the cost of quality control.

Charlotte Brouwer is medical physicist and team leader medical physics at the department of radiation oncology at the University Medical Center Groningen. Her clinical and research interests include auto-segmentation, adaptive radiotherapy and the introduction of AI-based methods into clinical practice. She is a member of several national and international working groups on the introduction of AI into clinical practice.

Dr. Albert J. Chang, MD, PhD is the Vice Chair of Surgical Services and Director of Brachytherapy at the University of California, Los Angeles.  He is a radiation oncologist that specializes in brachytherapy to all sites of the body.  He is actively involved in the American Brachytherapy Society and is the Chair of the Advisory Council.  His research interests are in optimizing brachytherapy with the use of systemic treatments.   

Yannick Chassé graduated from Ahuntsic College in 2013 and his a member of the brachytherapy team at the Hôpital Charles Lemoyne since 2020.

Mélanie Chouinard graduated from Ahuntsic College in 2008 and has been working in the Department of Radiation Oncology at the Centre Hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal since then.  She has been a specialized brachytherapy technologist since 2015.  She is also a member of the inspection committee at OTIMROEPMQ since 2018.

Dr. Jennifer Croke (she/her) is a Radiation Oncologist at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre and Assistant Professor of the Department of Radiation Oncology, University of Toronto. Her clinical sites include breast and gynecological malignancies. Her research interests include patient-reported outcomes, survivorship and patient education. She also has interest in medical education and is Program Director for the University of Toronto-Department of Radiation Oncology Fellowship Program.    

Dr Crook did her medical training at the University of Toronto, Residency in Radiation Oncology at the Princess Margaret Hospital and is currently a Full Professor of Radiation Oncology at the University of British Columbia. She is a staff Radiation Oncologist in Kelowna BC where she has developed image-guided HDR gynecologic brachytherapy, US-planned HDR prostate brachytherapy, HDR interstitial and surface mold penile brachytherapy and permanent seed brachytherapy for breast cancer. She is former president of the Board of the American Brachytherapy Society, recipient of the Thom Shanahan Distinguished Brachytherapy Educator Award and the ABS 2017 Henschke Award. She is also the first to hold a Brachytherapy Research Chair position in British Columbia.

Dr Derashodian is a radiation oncologist working at BC Cancer Kelowna. Centre Intégré de Cancérologie de la Montérégie, at Charles LeMoyne hospital. She graduated from Université de Montreal’s medical school in 2005. She then completed her residency in radiation oncology at Université Laval. She pursued her academic training at University of Miami with a fellowship in Urologic cancers under the supervision of Dr Alan Pollack. She then started her practice at Centre Intégré de Cancérologie de la Montérégie, at Charles LeMoyne hospital, and gained expertise in general brachytherapy.  Her main areas of expertise include urologic, gynecologic, and skin cancer, as well as general brachytherapy.

Phillip M. Devlin, MD, FACR, FASTRO, FFRRCSI(Hon) is Associate Professor of Radiation Oncology at Harvard Medical School and Chief of the Division of Brachytherapy in the Department of Radiation Oncology at the Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center. Dr. Devlin earned his medical degree at the University of Virginia School of Medicine in 1991 and completed his residency in Radiation Oncology at the University of Pennsylvania in 1995, followed by a specialized fellowship in brachytherapy at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in 1996.   In addition to lecturing extensively both nationally and internationally, Dr. Devlin has more than 100 published manuscripts and book chapters, and is editor of the text, Brachytherapy: Applications and Techniques, now in its second edition. He is a past President of the Massachusetts Radiological Society and was previously a member of the Board of Directors of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO). In 2008, he was named a Fellow of the American College of Radiology (FACR), and in 2013 he became both a Fellow of ASTRO (FASTRO) and a Faculty of Radiology Honorary Fellow in the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland (FFRRCSI[Hon]) and a Fellow of the American Brachytherapy Society. Dr. Devlin led two funded studies as part of the ACR’s Quality Research in Radiation Oncology (QRRO) project. His current research focus is on radioreponsiveness and gene expression in cutaneous lymphoma treated with brachytherapy. He continues to lead internationally in developing and deploying innovative brachytherapy techniques to expand the scope of practice, teaching and research.  

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Dr. I-Chow "Joe" Hsu is an internationally recognized radiation oncologist with special expertises in brachytherapy and hyperthermia. Dr. Hsu’s research investigates the application of Hight Dose Rate (HDR) brachytherapy, a highly precise and conformal treatment that delivers radiotherapy by temporarily placing a minute radioactive source in the tumor using minimal invasive, image guided procedures.  His research in hyperthermia, a moderate temperature elevation (40-45° C) of the targeted tumor, explores the synergy between thermal therapy and radiotherapy to improve treatment efficacy without increasing treatment related toxicity.  His research in the treatment of genitourinary and gynecologic malignancies have lead to improved clinical outcomes and effective novel treatments for challenging clinical conditions. Dr. Hsu earned a medical degree at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. He is an active member of American Society for Radiation Oncology, American Brachytherapy Society and Society for Thermal Medicine.  He has been recognized as a Fellow of American College of Radiology and as a Fellow of American Society for Radiation Oncology.

Dr. Fleur Huang is a radiation oncologist at the Cross Cancer Institute in Edmonton, and Associate Professor in the Department of Oncology at the University of Alberta, where she is a member of the Women and Children’s Health Research Institute. She maintains a busy clinical practice, with focus on women's cancers and palliative radiotherapy. Dr. Huang holds a medical degree from McGill University, where she also completed residency in Radiation Oncology. This was followed by Breast and Gynecologic subspecialty training at the Princess Margaret Hospital, University of Toronto. While growing her clinical practice, and deepening professional interests in Global Health and Health Systems, she earned an MPH at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Dr. Huang has advanced her perspectives through study in places as diverse as the International Space University / Pôle Universitaire Européen de Strasbourg and Singapore Management University, more recently she was among the inaugural cohort of the NCI’s Multilevel Intervention Training Institute. In 2015, Dr. Huang led a team selected to take part in NCI-ASCO’s Teams in Cancer Care Delivery initiative (healthcaredelivery.cancer.gov/healthcare/nci-asco.html). She is a core member of CancerCare Alberta’s Brachytherapy Centre of Excellence working group. With broad-ranging activities in research and teaching, some of Dr. Huang’s latest multidisciplinary efforts have explored machine learning for predictive modeling of MRI uterine deformation from brachytherapy tandem placement, and first-in-kind prototyping of a virtual reality simulator for cervical brachytherapy intracavitary/interstitial applicator insertion. She has been participating in the EMBRACE Collaborative Group (www.embracestudy.dk) since her first study enrolment in 2011, and still leads the team that was among the top-10 accruers to EMBRACE-I.

With an MD degree from the Université de Montréal, Dr. Marjory Jolicoeur founded Curietherapies in 2012, a non-profit organization that she still presides over today. A renowned radiation oncologist, she did her residency at Université de Montreal in 1996, before completing a brachytherapy fellowship at the Centre Georges-François Leclerc located in Dijon (France). In 1997, she started working at the department of Radiation Oncology of Université de Montréal, where she still teaches. A mere two years later, she was appointed medical consultant for all planning, construction and equipment selection processes of the new Radiation Oncology department of Hospital Charles-Le Moyne. She innovates by equipping the department with a suite and a comprehensive image-guided brachytherapy program. As a brachytherapy specialist, she has special research interests in its application to pathologies such as breast, genitourinary and gynecologic cancers. Her main focus is on the development of image guided implant procedures, the use of MRI in brachytherapy and the precision delivery of conformal high dose rate brachytherapy. She also teaches brachytherapy nationally and internationally. 

Andrée Jutras graduated from Ahuntsic College in 1994.  She has been a member of the brachytherapy team at the Centre Hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal since 2005 and has been Chief Brachytherapy Technologist since 2017.

Renée travaille comme physicienne médicale au CHUM depuis 2006. Ses principaux intérêts sont l'application de stratégies de gestion des risques à la radio-oncologie, la curiethérapie prostatique à faible débit (LDR) et à haut débit (HDR) et l'enseignement de la physique aux résidents en radio-oncologie. Renée fait partie de l'équipe de curiethérapie prostatique du CHUM depuis plus de dix ans. Elle était responsable de la mise en service du système UroNav avec reconstruction de cathéter électromagnétique pour une utilisation clinique pour la curiethérapie de la prostate HDR. Renée est également Chargée d’enseignement clinique à l’Université de Montréal et a été responsable du volet formation en physique du programme de résidence en radio-oncologie. En 2019, une révision complète du programme de physique et de la nouvelle structure des cours de physique pour mettre en œuvre la compétence par conception a été mise en œuvre. Renée a également fait du bénévolat au Collège canadien des physiciens en médecine (CCPM) pendant de nombreuses années, culminant avec le rôle d'examinateur en chef du CCPM de 2015 à 2018.

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Eric Leung is an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto and a Clinician-Investigator in the Department of Radiation Oncology at Sunnybrook Odette Cancer Centre. He is originally from Saint John New Brunswick and graduated from medical school at the Memorial University of Newfoundland.  He completed his residency and fellowship training at U of T and specializes in interstitial and MR-guided brachytherapy.  Dr. Leung has an interest in cervical cancer clinical trials and is a member of the Cervix Core Committee at NRG Oncology and the Cervix Executive Committee at CCTG. His other academic interests include translational studies in cervix cancer including metabolic imaging for patients with locally advanced gynecological tumours. 

Fellowship en curiethérapie; Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA MSc médecine expérimentale; Faculté de médecine, University Laval, Québec, Québec “Diplôme d’étude supérieurs en radio-oncologie”; University Laval, Québec, Québec Doctorat en médecine; Faculté de médecine, Université Laval, Québec, Québec Bachelier en Pharmacie; École de pharmacie, Université Laval, Québec, Québec

Geetha Menon is a Senior Medical Physicist at the Cross Cancer Institute, Edmonton, AB and anAssociate Clinical Professor in the Department of Oncology, University of Alberta. She is a Fellow of theCanadian College of Physicists in Medicine (CCPM). Over the years, her clinical focus has been inbrachytherapy and women’s cancers. Her principal research interests are in gynecological, ocular, andprostate brachytherapy, which have resulted in many innovative research initiatives. She has been thelocal physics lead for the EMBRACE studies. In the last 10 years, she has received various grants andher multidisciplinary partnership has resulted in several peer-reviewed journal articles. She currentlyserves the Registrar on the CCPM Board. Dr. Menon is also an active member of the CanadianOrganization of Medical Physicists’ Women’s Committee and IDEA group.

Dr. Gerard Morton is a radiation oncologist at the Sunnybrook Odette Cancer Centre and an associate professor at the University of Toronto.  He has a clinical and academic focus in prostate cancer and brachytherapy, is program director of the University of Toronto Brachytherapy AFC training program, and is chair of the Royal College Brachytherapy AFC committee.  He co-chairs several ongoing multicentre clinical trials, is co-chair of the ASTRO Annual Meeting GU Track, and is North American Editor for Clinical Oncology.  He has published extensively on prostate cancer.   ...

Dr Nadia Octave was educated and trained in France inbiomedical engineering with a specialization in radiationphysics and imaging. She has a solid track career in medicalphysics and in brachytherapy specifically, starting at theCurie Institute where she was trained as a physics resident.Her latest career challenge: the construction fromblueprints to full operation of a new cancer centre with theimplementation of a brachytherapy program along with theradiation protection program. Dr Octave is a strong believerof the inclusive and equitable collaborative approach inradiation oncology, and even more while establishing abrachytherapy program.

I am a Senior Consultant and  Brachytherapy Lead at Clinic for Radiation Oncology, University Hospital Zürich,Switzerland, and Assoc. Professor at Aarhus University Hospital, Denmark. Since 2009, I have been a Facultymember at ESTRO course on Gynae malignancies. I am the Founder and Course Director of BrachyTerra, a free and non-profit online teaching platform for low-middle-income countries. I teach/have taught at other events, includingIAEA courses & workshops, organized by the Medical University of Vienna and Aarhus University Hospital. I ama member of Gyn GEC ESTRO Group and collaborate(d) in EMBRACE and retro-EMBRACE studies. I was a consultantto the ICRU 89 Report and (co-)authored several manuscripts, book chapters, guidelines, and lectures atinternational conferences.

Dre. Marie-Lynn Racine has completed her residency in Radiation Oncology at the Université de Montréal. She has completed a first Fellowship in Brachytherapy at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital affiliated with the Harvard Medical School in Boston and a second Fellowship at the Centre Alexis-Vautrin in Nancy. She is currently working at the Hôpital Charles Lemoyne on the south shore of Montréal.

Alexandra Rink is a Lead Brachytherapy Physicist at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, a member of Ontario Health Gynecological Cancers Community of Practice, and an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Radiation Oncology and Medical Biophysics, at the University of Toronto. She completed her Ph.D. in the Department of Medical Biophysics under the co-supervision of Drs. Jaffray and Vitkin in 2008, focusing on in vivo methods for patient dosimetry.  After completing her Medical Physics residency at the University of Toronto, she joined the Medical Physics department at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre in 2010. Alexandra’s passions are in vivo dosimetry and improvement in quality of care for brachytherapy patients through the application of Artificial Intelligence and Deep Learning methods. 

Dr Roberge is Full Professor at the University of Montreal. He is a residency graduate of McGill and a fellow of Stanford and St-Jude Children’s research hospital.  His research has spanned the treatment of sarcoma, benign disease, lymphoma, brain tumors, cancer of the young and ocular tumors. He has published numerous book chapters, a textbook on benign disease and almost 150 peer-reviewed manuscripts. His current outlook is on imaging, technology evaluation and machine learning.

Marie-Pier St-Laurent graduated from Collège de Ste-Foy as a radiation oncology technologist and has been working at Hôpital Charles Lemoyne ever since. She then worked as a brachytherapy technologist from 2013 to 2023. She has held the position of brachytherapy coordinator and is currently assistant head of the brachytherapy sector. She is concerned about the situation of brachytherapy patients and is always looking for new ideas to serve them better. Member of the curietherapi.es committee since 2022

Dr. Subhas Pandit is radiation oncologist at Kathmandu Cancer Center, Nepal. He completed his residency in Radiation Oncology from All India Institute of Medical Sciences(AIIMS) ,New Delhi in 2010. After graduating he has been working in field of cancer care in Nepal. His areas of interest are Head and Neck , breast cancers and  gynecologic malignancy. He was involved in starting the first IMRT program in Nepal. He is now active in expanding brachytherapy services in the country . He is particularly interested in brachytherapy treatment of gynecologic, skin, head and neck and interstitial brachytherapy in oligo-metastatic diseases. He has authored book chapters in oncology books.

Dr Stephane Supiot’s interests are in developmental therapeutics for prostate cancer radiotherapy. He has worked extensively in the area of hypoxic response modifiers in prostate cancer models. He is principal investigator on several clinical studies on biochemically-relapsing (CARLHA 1 GEP12, CARLHA 2 GETUG 33) and oligometastatic prostate cancer (OLIGOPELVIS GETUG P07, OLIGOPELVIS 2 GETUG P12, POSTCARD GETUG P13) and has been involved in the study of novel strategies in cancer radiotherapy such as UHDR hadrontherapy. ”

Daniel Taussky, born in 1968, medical studies in Basel and residency in radiation oncology in Zurich and Geneva, Switzerland. 2003-2004 Fellowship in prostate brachytherapy and external-beam radiotherapy at Princess Margaret Cancer Center, Toronto. Since 2004 at Centre hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal (CHUM), Presently Associate Professor.  

After obtaining an MSc in physics at Université Laval in 2009, Dany worked in Quebec’s health system before obtaining his MSc in Medical Physics in 2015 at Université de Montréal.  Since then, he’s working at Hopital Charles-LeMoyne in the Radio-Oncology department.  His fields of expertise are Brachytherapy, TomoTherapy, and Machine QA.

Dr. Eric Vigneault received his medical degree from the University of Montreal in 1992. In addition to completing his residency training in radiation oncology at the CHUQ Hôtel-Dieu de Quebec Hospital in 1997, Dr. Vigneault obtained a Master of Science degree in experimental medicine in 1996. He also completed a one year and a half fellowship in brachytherapy and three-dimensional external beam radiation therapy at the University of California San Francisco under the supervision of Dr. Mack Roach in 1998. He is involved in brachytherapy at both the provincial and national levels, as Chair of the Province of Quebec brachytherapy committee, and was president of the Canadian Brachytherapy Group from 2002 to 2006. Dr Vigneault was head of the Hotel-Dieu of Quebec Radiation-Oncology Department from 2003 to 2007. Since September 2015 Dr Vigneault is the president of the Canadian Association of Radiation Oncology and the Titular of the new Research Chair on Image Guided Brachytherapy

I am an assistant attending physicist in the Department of Medical Physics at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center main campus. I received my BS in physics from Peking University in China in 2013 and my PhD in medical physics from Georgia Institute of Technology in 2017, with research experience in iterative CT reconstruction. I completed a medical physics residency at Emory University in 2019, and I stayed at Emory as an assistant professor and board-certified medical physicist before joining MSK in 2022. I provide clinical physics services in all aspects of radiation therapy and specialize in brachytherapy and Gamma Knife. I am currently working on a variety of research projects, including image segmentation and image synthesizing. I am interested in improving automation in clinical workflow and enabling advanced treatment strategy.