The Cardiovascular and Interventional Radiological Society of Europe (CIRSE) today announced that the PreciseOnco consortium has been awarded funding from the EU’s Innovative Health Initiative (IHI) to advance precision cancer treatment through the integration of advanced medical imaging, robotic assistance, and minimally invasive therapies.
The €14.9 million public funding will be complemented by €9 million in in-kind contributions and additional resources from industry partners, supporting a five-year research and innovation programme that also includes five clinical studies.
In a recent press release CIRSE states that with its unique professional network, scientific expertise, and educational infrastructure, the society is set to play an important role in supporting the validation, adoption, and dissemination of PreciseOnco innovations in the interventional oncology (IO) community. The society will lead the development and implementation of high-quality training and capacity building sessions to enhance end-users’ skills and knowledge related to the use of spectral imaging in the interventional space and facilitate the adoption of the PreciseOnco objectives, findings, and results.
The PreciseOnco public-private partnership unites experts from industry, research organisations, medical societies and leading European hospitals:
- Industry partners: Philips, Quantum Surgical, and IGEA.
- Research organisation: European Institute for Biomedical Imaging Research (EIBIR).
- Medical society: Cardiovascular and Interventional Radiological Society of Europe (CIRSE).
- Academic partners: University Hospital Cologne (Uniklinik Koeln) in Germany, University Medical Center Utrecht (UMCU) and Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) in the Netherlands, and two major university hospital networks in France: Assistance Publique–Hôpitaux de Paris (APHP; Hôpital Henri-Mondor) and Hospices Civils de Lyon (HCL).
The press release continues, outlining that the PreciseOnco consortium aims to develop a suite of integrated technologies designed to take the next leap in precision cancer care. Central to the research and innovation programme is spectral imaging, an advanced form of computed tomography (CT) and cone-beam CT that captures significantly richer information about tissue composition than conventional imaging, enabling more confident differentiation between tumours, vasculature, and healthy tissue. By analysing X-rays at different energy levels, spectral imaging enables physicians with greater clarity to see exactly what tissues they are treating.
PreciseOnco will integrate robotic guidance systems that use real-time imaging data to guide interventional instruments (one or multiple needles) with sub-millimetre precision. The consortium will also look to advance electrochemotherapy, a minimally invasive technique that combines locally administered electrical pulses with chemotherapy to selectively treat cancer tissue, with the aim of maximizing tumour control while preserving surrounding healthy tissue.
Crucially, all these technologies will be powered by artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms designed to enhance image quality, reduce radiation dose, streamline advanced visualisation software and provide real time intra procedural feedback on treatment success. This would allow physicians to confirm that tumours have been fully treated before the patient leaves the operating room.
The project is structured into multiple work packages covering spectral imaging technology development, AI based image processing, robotic guidance integration, multicentre clinical validation and health economic assessment. PreciseOnco will conduct five clinical studies spanning multiple cancer types and interventional workflows, ensuring robust validation in real world clinical settings:
- VISTA (Virtual Spectral Imaging for Superior Thermal Ablation Guidance): Evaluating spectral imaging to improve liver, kidney ablation procedures and liver radioembolization.
- SPOT ON (Spectral angiography-computed tomography to Optimize percutaneous Tumor ablation): Assessing spectral CT for better tumour targeting and treatment planning.
- HORA EST HCC 2: Combining thermal ablation with transarterial chemoembolization (TACE) in a single session for improved hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) treatment.
- SPECTRA-L (Spectral Performance Evaluation of a CT-Equipped Therapeutic Radiology Angio Suite in Liver): Testing spectral imaging for transarterial chemoembolization (TACE) procedures.
- LASER (Locoregional therApies Spectral Evaluation of Responses): Developing imaging biomarkers to predict treatment success across multiple cancer types and interventional techniques.
CIRSE states that these studies will generate evidence to support the adoption of spectral imaging and robotic guidance across European cancer centres, extending access to advanced minimally invasive treatments to a larger patient population.
