Baozhou Sun, PhD, associate professor of radiation oncology at the School of Medicine, Institute for Public Health faculty scholar and Global Health Center collaborator, and teams of university and global partners are working to bring advanced radiation therapy treatments (RT) to underserved parts of the globe.
In collaboration with WashU’s Department of Radiation Oncology, the Global Health Center, and NCCM, Sun’s team is using a grant from the American Association of Physicists in Medicine, to bring advanced types of radiation treatment to Mongolia’s cancer patients, and training to its staff. NCCM will be introduced to a rapid deployment and efficient quality assurance of advanced radiotherapy system developed at WashU called RACER, which will help streamline patient data collection, improve efficiencies in the process of cancer treatment delivery, and automate and standardize quality assurance processes. Sun says the goal is to bring this type of state-of-the-art treatment and technology to other lower- and middle-income countries.
This project will significantly enhance NCCM’s capabilities to increase RT delivery to a larger number of patients with improved quality, helping to bridge a major health care gap.
Baozhou Sun
Through a 2021 Global Incubator Seed Grant from WashU’s McDonnell International Scholars Academy, Sun and colleagues recently teamed with UCI and Makerere University School of Medicine in Africa, to modernize radiation therapy for Uganda cancer patients. The Global Health Center supported the team’s online training for UCI staff. In May, the first patients received the advanced treatment to great success.