We are delighted to share details of the fourth in-person consortium meeting, which will take place on Friday, 15 May in Stockholm, the day before the main ESTRO congress. Please see the meeting programme below, and thank you to all those who have agreed to speak and to chair.

The meeting will be held at the beautiful Hotel Skeppsholmen, a historic house on a peaceful island in the city. Boats depart from Slussen to and from Skeppsholmen, every 15 minutes with an estimated travel time of 10 minutes. Bus 65 departs from T-Centralen to Skeppsholmen, every 20 minutes with an estimated travel time of 10 minutes.

Registration is free, and a small number of places are still available. Registration will close at the end of Thursday April 30th.

Calendar invitations will be issued after this date to confirm registrations. Please note that this is an in-person-only meeting, and online participation will not be available. If your circumstances change and you are unable to attend, please email us as soon as possible, hello@uprightresearchconsortium.comso that we may offer your place to another attendee.

We thank Leo Cancer Care, P-Cure and Mevion for their sponsorship of this event.

If you are interested in upright radiotherapy-related presentations and posters at the main ESTRO congress, we have compiled a list available here.

Finally, an informal social dinner for the upright radiotherapy community is being planned for Sunday, 17 May, kindly coordinated by Dr Ye Zhang. If you would like to attend, please register using this link by Wednesday, 6 May, and only if you are confident you can do so. The venue is to be confirmed, and the cost of the meal is expected to be reasonable.

8.00–9.00

Registration, hot drinks, breakfast snacks

Session 1 chaired by Prof Vincent Gregoire and Nkuebe Clement Moleko (both of Centre Léon Bérard, France)

9.00–9.05

Welcome from the consortium committee

9.05–9.20

“Industry insight” from P-Cure: Dr Alexander Pryanichnikov

9.20–9.50

Keynote: Dr Philip Blumenfeld (Hadassah Medical Center, Israel) – Upright image-guided proton therapy: translating innovation into clinical practice

9.50–10.20

Keynote: Prof Tomas Kron (Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Melbourne, Australia) – Upright as an option for many radiotherapy approaches from high to low resource settings

10.20–10.45

Break

Session 2 chaired by Dr Petra Trnkova (Czech Technical University in Prague) and Tess Gilligan (Sheffield Hallam University, UK)

10.45–11.00

“Industry insight” from Mevion: Dr Lionel Bouchet

11.00–11.40

Proffered presentations
Dr Serdar Charyyev (Stanford University, USA) – Benchmarking a new paradigm: commissioning and validation of the first ultra-compact upright proton therapy system
Chrysa Rousi (Czech Technical University in Prague) – Considerations for the quality assurance of upright photon and proton radiotherapy
Dr Michele Dougherty (Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville, USA) – Preparing quality assurance frameworks for upright photon radiotherapy systems: opportunities for log-file-based QA?
Timothy Lo (University College London, UK) – A geometric analysis framework to quantify upright and supine anatomical variations

11.40–11.50

Break

Session 3 chaired by Dr Ye Zhang (Paul Scherrer Institute, Switzerland) and Wouter van Weerelt (RaySearch Laboratories, Sweden)

11.50–12.20

Proffered presentations
Muheng Li (Paul Scherrer Institute, Switzerland) – Upright 4D free-breathing MRI reconstruction using instant neural graphics primitives
Maria Plana (CNAO, Italy) – Shoot-through beams: enhanced plan robustness and range probing in upright proton setups
Jonathan Frömel (Karlsruhe Institut of Technology, Germany) – Free-breathing spot-scanning proton radiography and CT for upright workflows

12.20–12.40

Discussion of collaborative grant opportunities: Dr Tracy Underwood (Leo Cancer Care and University College London, UK) and Dr Lennart Volz (GSI, Germany)

12.40–12.45

Group photo

12.45–2pm

Lunch

Session 4 chaired by Prof Aswin Hoffman (Technische Universität Dresden, Germany) and Zixin He (GSI, Germany)

14.00–14.15

“Industry insight” from Leo Cancer Care: Prof Rock Mackie

14.15–14.45

Keynote: Prof Carri Glide-Hurst (University of Wisconsin Madison, USA)

14.45–15.15

Keynote: Prof Ester Orlandi (CNAO, Italy) – Upright particle therapy at CNAO: developing new clinical approaches

15.15–15.30

Break, collect refreshments for interactive discussion

Session 5 chaired by Prof Tony Lomax (Paul Scherrer Institute, Switzerland) and Prof Francesca Spadea (Karlsruhe Institut of Technology, Germany)

15.15–16.45

Interactive discussion: what should we standardise in the field of upright RT?