We are looking for a PhD student in a research project funded by ZonMw. This project intends to identify the optimal selection procedure for personalised adjuvant treatment in early colon cancer.
Aim of the project
After curative surgery, a subgroup of patients with early stage colon cancer (CC) has an increased risk of recurrence. Adjuvant chemotherapy can decrease this cancer recurrence risk but this treatment has serious side effects and leads to additional health care costs. To maximize survival benefit on the one hand and to minimize the number of futile treatments on the other hand, careful selection of patients who may benefit of adjuvant therapy is essential. Unfortunately, current selection procedures lack a well-founded evidence-base. Furthermore, new developments in the field of genetics enable selection based on the molecular nature of the tumour. This project aims to compare new, molecular methods to select patients with early CC after curative surgery who may benefit from adjuvant chemotherapy to the current selection procedure.
Model
A decision-model will be built that is based on data from the literature, the National Cancer Registry, the pathology register and a number of clinical studies. This model will be used to make predictions on long-term health benefits and cost-effectiveness of several molecular-based selection strategies.
Decision Modeling Center
We are part of the department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam. Our mission is to support evidence-based decision making in health care. By developing and using mathematical models, we aim to optimize decision making in public healthcare as well as in daily clinical practice.
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