Dr Aravindhan Sundaramurthy

I am a consultant in clinical oncology specialising in genitourinary cancers. I offer systemic anti-cancer therapy (chemotherapy, immunotherapy, targeted oral therapies, novel anti-hormonal agents) and radiation therapy for cancers of prostate, bladder, kidney and penis.

I have a special interest in radiotherapy, both external beam radiotherapy (image guided IMRT/VMAT) and brachytherapy (LDR “seed” brachytherapy and HDR brachytherapy) and stereotactic ablative radiotherapy (SABR) for oligometastatic cancers.

I strongly believe, in localised prostate cancers, we should channel our research resources towards minimising the harms of treatment by considering protocols for focal tumour treatments, biomarker driven selection of patients for treatment dose escalation and maximise dose escalation in high-risk patients with advanced radiotherapy techniques.

There is growing evidence that increasing the radiation dose to prostate in localised disease can improve cancer cure rates. This is particularly relevant to cancers with unfavourable features. I do LDR “seed” brachytherapy as a monotherapy in favourable prostate cancers as well as a “boost” to image guided volumetric arc therapy (VMAT) in patients with unfavourable features. I have led the case for high-dose-rate (HDR) brachytherapy at the Edinburgh Cancer Centre, and treated the first Scottish patient in April 2021. Now this service is running successfully at the ECC.

After my undergraduate (MBBS) in South India, I completed my core medical training as well as clinical oncology training based in Edinburgh. After my specialist training, I did a clinical research fellowship at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre and University of Toronto, further sub-specialising in genitourinary malignancies and prostate radiotherapy and brachytherapy.

I was awarded the CARO-ACURA 2017 grant for a focal dose escalation study in prostate cancer using MRI-guided HDR-brachytherapy boost to tumour while delivering SBRT to the whole gland.

As a scientific member of the National Cancer Research Institute (NCRI) prostate cancer subgroup, I work towards bringing in national and international trials in genitourinary cancers to the southeast Scotland Cancer Network (SCAN).

Systemic anti-cancer therapies are rapidly evolving in genitourinary cancers, with newer and existing agents getting approved for use in different stages of cancers. I have an extensive experience in systemic therapies using:

• Chemotherapy agents such as Docetaxel, Platinum based agents
• Immunotherapy agents such as Ipilimumab, Nivolumab, Pembrolizumab
• Oral TKIs such as sunitinib, pazopanib, tivozanib, cabozantinib or axitinib
• Novel agents such as abiraterone, enzalutamide, alpharadin