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2024 Michael and Lori Milken Family Foundation – PCF Young Investigator Award

Integrating Artificial Intelligence and Genomic Profiling for Personalized Treatment in Oligometastatic Prostate Cancer

Philip Sutera, MD
University of Rochester

Mentors: Phuoc Tran, MD, PhD; Luciane Tsukamoto Kagohara, PhD; Yuhchyau Chen, MD, PhD

Description:

  • Oligometastatic castration-sensitive prostate cancer (omCSPC) is an intermediary state in prostate cancer progression, characterized by limited metastatic dissemination, offering a unique window for therapeutic intervention. There is a pressing need to refine treatment protocols to optimize patient outcomes.
  • Dr. Philip Sutera’s project aims to harness the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) in the prognostication and treatment stratification of omCSPC by developing a multi-modal model that integrates digital pathology, tumor genomics, and clinical features to allow for greater therapeutic precision.  
  • A digital pathology-based multimodal AI (MMAI) model able to predict benefit of concurrent androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) in patients with omCSPC treated with metastasis-directed radiation therapy will be developed and validated.
  • To understand the biology of AI-detected features, spatial gene expression on histopathology slides will be correlated with regions that correspond to AI detected imaging features.
  • If successful, this project will develop a multi-modal AI approach incorporating pathology features, genomics, and clinical data that can accurately predict which patients with omCSPC have excellent outcomes with metastasis-directed radiation therapy alone vs those that should also receive concurrent ADT. Further, the AI-detected digital pathology features will uncover new, previously unknown biologic pathways that contribute to advanced prostate cancer progression.

What this means to patients: Oligometastatic castration-sensitive prostate cancer (omCSPC) is considered a potentially curable metastatic disease state, however optimal treatment strategies need to be defined. Dr. Sutera’s project will develop a novel multi-modal AI-based approach to more precisely predict outcomes and refine treatment options for individual patients, improving outcomes and sparing patients from unnecessary toxicities. Additionally, this approach will uncover novel biological pathways influencing prostate cancer progression which may lead to more targeted therapies, significantly impacting patient care by offering tailored and more effective treatment options.