CoBra
Cooperative Brachytherapy
Priority Axis
Technological and Social InnovationSpecific objective
Technological Innovation
Lead partner
Université de Lille (ULille)Contact
Date de début
01/01/2018Date de fin
30/09/2022Project budget
3 867 030 €ERDF amount
2 320 218 €ERDF rate
60%À propos
Common challenge
The common challenge addressed by the CoBra project was related to cancer control plans. In fact, the WHO estimated 345,000 European men were diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2012, representing 15% of the cancers diagnosed in men. With an estimated estimated 72 000 deaths in 2012 in Europe, prostate cancer is the fifth leading cause of death from cancer in men (source: http://globocan.iarc.fr).
The CoBra project dealt with technological innovation for diagnosis and treatment of localised cancers, more specifically those involving prostate and other soft tissue, with the aim of enhancing patients’ quality of life and reducing cancer mortality.
Overall objective
Main outputs
Cross border approach
Main Achievements
The Cobra project came to an end in September 2022. One of the main achievements of the CoBra project is a novelty prototype of the MR-robot for real-time biopsy and brachytherapy interventions. The development of the MR-robot started in 2020, during the start of the covid-19 period, from a joint cooperation between academic and industrial partners. The presence of observer partners, such as in the consortium from in and out the 2 Seas area facilitated the implementation of the project outputs, because they provided facilities that have been integrated or tested with the MR-robot from 2020 to 2022. A set of tests and real interventions have been realized in 2021 and 2022 thanks to the involvement of all the partners and observers of the project. This allowed the increase of the technological readiness level of the main outputs of the project and gave a prospective entry to the market after the end of the project, marked by tests on animal prostate organs. This achievement has been obtained through joint innovation between 2 Seas actors on the diagnosis and the treatment of cancers.
Next, A joint approach allowed the realisation of a socio-economic impacts study (2020) of the CoBra project’s innovation with promising results, enhancing coherence in the diagnosis and treatment of prostate cancers in the 2 Seas area. This helped to prepare the future deployment of CoBra technology in rural areas in order to reduce the gaps of disparity to access to the cancer healthcare.
In addition, the communication and dissemination events contributed to raising awareness of the CoBra robotic solution in Europe and abroad thanks to such event as: MedFIT 2020 in Lille, The Hamlyn symposium on medical robotics 2021 organized by Imperial college of London and ESTRO 2022 in Copenhagen. The actual results of the CoBra project can serve in developing other concepts of mini-invasive robots for earlier screening of local cancers such as liver and pancreas.
Testimonial
The main advantages of the CoBra solution are its high-field MR-compatibility, real-time adaptation, precision, automation, and time efficiency, all of which contribute to overall performance in diagnosis and treatment of localised cancers. We see this could potentially benefit or patients primarily because MRI offers much better soft tissue visualisation, we can much more clearly see the lesion and that leads to the potential to boost the dose with the brachytherapy treatments using focal therapy or indeed to reduce the number of cores that are being taken during the prostate biopsy procedure.