Artificial Intelligence to Personalize Prostate Cancer Treatment (the HypoElect Trial)

A prospective, single-arm phase II study is the individualization of RT for patients with high-risk localized PCa based on multimodal artificial intelligence (MMAI). All patients will receive the current standard of care: (i) a dose escalation to the prostate via HDR brachytherapy, (ii) two years of ADT and (iii) whole-pelvis UHF-RT (5 fractions).

Prostate cancer (PCa) is the most frequent diagnosed malignancy in male patients in Europe and radiation therapy (RT) is a main treatment option. For primary high-risk localized PCa patients, NCCNv4.2023 guidelines recommend normo- or hypofractionated RT to the prostate ± the elective pelvic lymphatics and systemic treatment in terms of ADT. Although the standard of care, the benefit of this therapy regimen is controversially discussed: the benefit of (i) an RT dose escalation using brachytherapy (2) or focal dose escalated RT(3) or (ii) an elective RT of the pelvic lymph nodes (1) is not finally proven yet. In parallel, first studies proposed a reduction in treatment fractions in terms of ultra-hypofractionated RT (UHF-RT) (4). The aim of this prospective, single-arm phase II study is the individualization of RT for patients with high-risk localized PCa based on MMAI. All patients will receive the current standard of care: (i) a dose escalation to the prostate via HDR brachytherapy, (ii) two years of ADT and (iii) whole-pelvis UHF-RT (5 fractions). For the HypoElect patients we expect no significant differences in toxicity rates compared to the randomized controlled POP-RT trial (1) which treated the patients with moderately-hypofractionated RT to the prostate and the elective pelvic lymph nodes in parallel to 24 months of ADT. Secondary endpoints like relapse free survival, metastatic free survival, prostate cancer survival and overall survival will depict the oncologic efficacy in this patient cohort. Thus, the safety and oncologic outcome results of this study might be the first in this highly selected treatment group: NCCN high-risk, PSMA PET cN0/cM0 and MMAI high-risk. Considering the epidemiological importance of the PCa these results could have a significant socio-economic impact. In parallel a translational research program will address the identification of novel biomarkers to predict the treatment outcome.