Prof Alan Horwich

Alan Horwich

Section of Radiotherapy
The Institute of Cancer Research
Sutton

Improving radiotherapy for treating cancer

Professor Alan Horwich is leading clinical research to improve radiotherapy and chemotherapy treatment for many types of cancer, focusing on breast, lung, bladder, testicular and prostate cancer as well as lymphoma.

He was the Director of Clinical Research and Development at The Institute of Cancer Research between 1994 and 2005 and is now the Academic Dean. He is also Chairman of the Section of Radiotherapy.

Professor Horwich and his team are investigating the best ways to give radiotherapy to people with cancer. In particular, they are developing techniques to carefully control the dose and targeting of radiotherapy, to make it as effective as possible while reducing side effects. This work supports Cancer Research UK's drive to improve radiotherapy techniques, revitalising this mainstay treatment.

Professor Horwich’s team recently completed clinical trials that showed that an increased dose of radiotherapy is beneficial for men with prostate cancer.

The team at the ICR is developing and testing techniques to compensate for the movement within a patient's body while they are undergoing radiotherapy for lung cancer, so as to avoid damage to healthy cells.

IMRT - targeted radiotherapy

They are also investigating a technique called Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy (IMRT), which is designed to target radiotherapy much more accurately to tumours. The team is currently running a trial testing the use of IMRT for treating breast cancer.

Cancer Research UK has supported Professor Horwich's research since 1991. His significant contribution to improving cancer treatments is highly valued and he has recently been appointed as a Senior Investigator at the National Institute for Health Research.

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