Clinical trials

Concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CCRT), consisting of external beam radiotherapy (EBRT) and chemotherapy, followed by brachytherapy (BT) is the standard of care for patients with locally advanced cervical carcinoma. In current clinical practice, conventionally, one radiotherapy plan based on the initial planning computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan of the pelvis is applied for the complete 5-6 weeks of EBRT. However, there is a high degree of cervix and uterus motion in the pelvis due to different fillings of the bladder and the bowel. Consequently, large safety margins are required to compensate for organ movement, potentially leading to higher toxicity. Lately, daily high-quality cone-beam CT (CBCT) guided adaptive radiotherapy, aided by artificial intelligence (AI), became clinically available. Due to the improved soft-tissue contrast, the treatment plan can now be online adapted to the current position of the tumor and the adjacent organs-at-risk (OAR), while the patient is lying on the treatment couch. Moreover, the German Research Cancer Center offers the unique possibility of additional weekly magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in treatment position using a shuttle system. Daily CBCT-adapted EBRT in combination with weekly MRI in treatment position might therefore offer superior sparing of surrounding OAR and consequently reduction of treatment-associated side-effects. However, to the investigators knowledge, no toxicity data for daily CBCT/AI adaptive EBRT of locally advanced cervical cancer with additional MR-guidance exists. The AIM-C1 trial therefore aims to assess the potential of daily CBCT adaptive and AI aided EBRT combined with additional weekly offline MR-guidance in treatment position using a shuttle system.

A commercially available vaginal dilator set will be used as measuring device. The grading of vaginal stenosis will be determined as difference of the diameter of vaginal dilator to the baseline. A reduction of the diameter of \<20% is defined as vaginal stenosis Grade 1, a reduction of 20-35% as Grade 2, a reduction of \>35-49% as Grade 3 and a reduction \>/=50% as Grade 4. The investigators hypothesize that the rate of vaginal stenosis Grade 1 or higher 12 months after radiotherapy is lower in the group using extended vaginal dilation during radiotherapy (Arm A). Rates of vaginal stenosis of 50% have been observed in previous patient collectives and the investigators hypothesize that a reduction to 25% is possible in the experimental group.

The overarching goal of the NAVIGATORR trial is the improvement of local tumor control in head-and-neck cancer (HNC) by increasing the precision of surgical resection and individualization of radiotherapy. Squamous cell carcinomas (SCC) together with salivary gland carcinomas (adenoid cysytic Carcinoma (ACC), mucoepidermoid Carcinoma (MEC), adenocarcinoma (AC)) represent the most common entities in German head and neck oncology. In localized tumors, primary tumor resection with possible adjuvant (chemo)radiotherapy is still the treatment of choice. Advances in targeted therapy and immunotherapy have greatly expanded the repertoire of medical oncology in recent years. In particular, prognosis of patients with end-stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) has been improved and even patients with advanced head and neck disease can be offered new second line regimes. Importantly, all of these advances are based on personalized and targeted therapies. Unfortunately, surgical oncology in the head-and-neck region has not yet shown such developments towards individualized treatment, so that the rates of safe oncological resections (clear resection margins) haven been stagnating. Despite advances in reconstructive surgery that allow the resection of head-and-neck tumors that would not have been operable 10 - 15 years ago, the basic principles of the resection margin and especially margin evaluation have remained unchanged. The technique of navigation-based tumor resection and the annotation of biopsies by titanium clip-markings or special annotation have been described, but only in small case series and without proving the benefit of the method concerning clinically relevant parameters. Therefore, the NAVIGATORR trial will enroll 60 patients with HNC of the midface that will undergo navigation-based surgery. Importantly, interdisciplinary data exchange of the intraoperative navigation data between surgeons, pathologists and radiation oncologists will be established. Clear surgical margins (distance between tumor cells and resection border \> 5 mm) have been defined as primary endpoint. Secondary endpoints such as dosimetric assessment of individualized radiotherapy plans, local tumor control or overall survival should then be compared to data from the literature to further assess this multidisciplinary approach.