bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
WE‐G‐211‐06: Multiplexed Radio Luminescence Imaging for Radiation Therapy
Authors: Carpenter CM , Pratx G , Sun C , Liu H , Xing L 
Published: November 2011

Purpose: Radio Luminescence Imaging is being investigated for its potential to provide biological feedback during radiation treatment. We are investigating the use of biologically‐targeted phosphor nanoparticles to enable high‐resolution molecular imaging with standard therapeutic systems. This work demonstrates the ability of this technique to image multiple molecular markers in a small‐animal model. We investigate their potential in resolving markers pertinent to treatment monitoring. Method and Materials: Images were acquired with a custom‐built imaging system incorporating a Princeton Instruments Pro‐EM camera CCD with 512×512 pixels) and a 50mm lens. Tb‐ and Eu‐doped BaYF4 nanoparticles of linearly varying amounts (0mg/ml:10mg/ml; 2.5mg/ml:7.5 mg/ml; 7.5mg/ml:2.5mg/ml; and 10mg/ml:0mg/ml) were mixed into cuvettes and imaged under irradiation with an 80keV X‐ray source (Pantak Therapax). BaYF4 nanoparticles were also placed in the right foreleg and right and left flanks of a nude mouse. In another experiment, phosphor nanoparticles were placed in a cylindrical plug‐shaped phantom and irradiated with a 9MeV electron beam produced by a Varian Trilogy linear accelerator. All images were processed with custom spectral unmixing software, which enabled the visualization of each phosphor. Results: Concentrations less than 0.1 mg/ml were resolved. Spectral unmixing showed excellent separation of the phosphor nanoparticles (r = −0.98), demonstrating the multiplexing ability of the technique. In addition, phosphor concentrations showed excellent linearity (R>0.99), with excellent separation of the phosphor nanoparticles. Images of the phosphor nanoparticles implanted in the fore and hindquarters demonstrated the ability to spectrally separate in small‐animal model. Conclusion: The ability of radio luminescent imaging was demonstrated in phantom and small‐animal models, for both X‐rays and electron beams. Enabling simultaneous imaging of multiple molecular imaging markers is possible in Radiation Therapy applications. This technique has potential for introducing the monitoring of biological markers during treatment.The Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Program, the National Institutes of Health ICMIC P50CA114747, the Center for Biomedical Imaging at Stanford, and the Friends for Early Breast Cancer Detection.
WE‐G‐301‐01: Airport Security Imaging Systems: Design, Dose, Risks, and Quality
Authors: Moulder J , Kassiday D , Segraves J , Gray J 
Published: November 2011

Imaging at ports of entry into the United States has become ubiquitous— cargo scanners at seaports; CT luggage scanners, x‐ray backscatter whole‐ body scanners, and millimeter wave imaging systems at airports. The use of x‐ray backscatter scanners has become quite controversial in that hundreds millions to over a billion of people will be exposed to very low levels of radiation, perhaps many times each year, in the U.S. alone.This special symposium has been developed for the medical physics community in order to provide technical information about these scanners and the risk of exposing large numbers of airline staff and passengers, including pregnant women and children, to ionizing or electromagnetic radiation. Since the primary purpose of these systems is to provide a security tool, one must also consider the quality of the images produced and the ability to detect contraband material.
TH‐A‐220‐10: Ventilation Imaging of the Lung: Comparison of 4DCT with Hyperpolarized Helium‐3 MR
Authors: Ding K , Cao K , Miller W , Christensen G , Reinhardt J , Benedict S , Libby B , Sheng K 
Published: November 2011

Purpose: Radiation induced pulmonary diseases can change the tissue material properties of lung parenchyma and the regional ventilation. 4DCT can be used to measure regional ventilation when combined with non‐linear 3D image registration. The purpose of this study is to analyze the effects of the B‐Spline grid spacing and the weighting of linear elasticity in 4DCT and image registration based measurement of ventilation by comparing the result to hyperpolarized helium‐3 MR (HP He‐3 MR). Methods: 4DCT data set and HP He‐3 MR before RT were acquired from one patient. The regularized tissue volume and vesselness preserving image registration algorithm was applied to register the maximum inhalation image to the maximum exhalation image for the measurement of regional ventilation. The HP He‐3 MR ventilation map was rigidly registered to the maximum exhalation image for direct comparison to the 4DCT derived ventilation map. Relative overlap (RO) was used to quantify the similarity between the two measurements. Ventilation maps derived from different B‐Spline grid spacing and Laplacian weighting in the image registration were compared. Results: The similarity between the two measurements increases as the increase of the B‐Spline grid spacing and Laplacian weighting which result a smoother ventilation map. In this study, the best similarity with the RO value 0.75 is found with Laplacian weighting of 0.5 and B‐Spline grid spacing of 32 mm. The Laplacian weighting of 0.01 with B‐Spline grid spacing of 8 mm shows the lowest OR value of 0.68. Visual inspection indicates the two measurements have similar anterior/posterior and superior/inferior gradients. Conclusions: We have compared the 4DCT based ventilation measurement with the results from hyperpolarized helium‐3 MR. This result will be valuable for improving the lung CT image registration algorithm toward accuracy not only in the measure of landmark error but also the underlying physiological changes.This work is is supported in part by NIH 1R21CA144063.
TH‐B‐BRA‐01: Educational Course Therapy
Authors: Howell R , Newhauser W 
Published: November 2011

Long‐term survivors of radiation therapy have an increased risk of developing second cancers, cardiovascular disease, and many other late effects. Population‐based epidemiological studies have established risk models to quantify the relationship between excess risk and radiation dose. The quantification of radiation‐related late effects and the use of modern delivery techniques to reduce such effects is an important and growing area of research in medical physics.Currently, in the United States there are more than ten million cancer survivors and this number is rapidly increasing due to improved treatments, more frequent screening, and greater life expectancy. As the population of survivors increases so too does the need to minimize the likelihood of cancer therapy related late effects and specifically those related to radiation therapy. This continuing education session will focus on the two most commonly reported late effects from radiation therapy, second cancers and cardiac toxicity.This session will provide an overview of the dosimetric techniques currently used in late effects studies, dose response models, and how data in the literature can be translated into clinical practice (now and in the future). The specific learning objectives for this session include:1. To provide a general overview of the methods used in epidemiological studies of radiation‐related late effects.2. To present an overview of the current knowledge on radiation‐related cardiac toxicity.3. To present an overview of the current knowledge on radiation‐related second cancers.4. To improve understanding of the results of late effects studies and their effect on the future practice of medical physics.
TH‐B‐BRB‐01: HDR Brachytherapy Commissioning and Quality Assurance for HDR Remote Afterloader, Source Exchange, Applicators
Authors: Pella S , McKee M , Chilukuri M 
Published: November 2011

Brachytherapy is the first conformal radiation therapy. A sealed source is placed in or in contact with the tumor providing dose to the tumor with small volumes of normal tissue irradiated. It became more sophisticated with the usage of remote afterloader. With this, our responsibility as physicists increased and became critical in ensuring an accurate and precise treatment planning and delivery. The ability to deliver a correct treatment is conditioned by the precision of the source placement at the dwell point/points predicted by the treatment planning system (TPS). The introducing of the CT based planning gave the possibility of reconstructing not only the correct shape of a treated volume but the correct reconstruction of the applicators, the catheters, and localizing the first dwell position (the stopping point) of the radioactive source that will deliver the treatment.The first condition of delivering a good and accurate treatment is correct catheter and applicators reconstruction, correct distance evaluation to each dwell position, and extremely good and well organized quality control program before the applicators and connectors are used and before the treatment plan is sent to the treatment console.This lecture will provide an introduction into the understanding of High Dose Radiation Therapy QA and commissioning of the applicators. It will provide detailed descriptions of the remote afterloader, applicators, and all the quality assurance tools necessary for organizing and running a safe and secure High dose radiation therapy program (HDR) in a cancer center. Learning Objective:1. Understanding the HDR process: technical and practical2. Understanding the importance of a well implemented quality assurance program3. Understanding the different aspects of commissioning and calibrating of the radioactive source and the applicators used in HDR.4. Challenges and solutions of running a HDR program in a cancer center
TH‐B‐BRB‐02: HDR Brachytherapy Commissioning and Quality Assurance for HDR Remote Afterloader, Source Exchange, Applicators
Authors: McKee M 
Published: November 2011

Brachytherapy is the first conformal radiation therapy. A sealed source is placed in or in contact with the tumor providing dose to the tumor with small volumes of normal tissue irradiated. It became more sophisticated with the usage of remote afterloader. With this, our responsibility as physicists increased and became critical in ensuring an accurate and precise treatment planning and delivery. The ability to deliver a correct treatment is conditioned by the precision of the source placement at the dwell point/points predicted by the treatment planning system (TPS). The introducing of the CT based planning gave the possibility of reconstructing not only the correct shape of a treated volume but the correct reconstruction of the applicators, the catheters, and localizing the first dwell position (the stopping point) of the radioactive source that will deliver the treatment.The first condition of delivering a good and accurate treatment is correct catheter and applicators reconstruction, correct distance evaluation to each dwell position, and extremely good and well organized quality control program before the applicators and connectors are used and before the treatment plan is sent to the treatment console.This lecture will provide an introduction into the understanding of High Dose Radiation Therapy QA and commissioning of the applicators. It will provide detailed descriptions of the remote afterloader, applicators, and all the quality assurance tools necessary for organizing and running a safe and secure High dose radiation therapy program (HDR) in a cancer center.Learning Objective:1. Understanding the HDR process: technical and practical2. Understanding the importance of a well implemented quality assurance program3. Understanding the different aspects of commissioning and calibrating of the radioactive source and the applicators used in HDR.4. Challenges and solutions of running a HDR program in a cancer center
TH‐B‐110‐01: Informatics in Radiation Oncology
Authors: Siochi R 
Published: November 2011

Informatics covers not only the information technology (IT) and infrastructure required to support data collection and management but also the computer science concepts that turn data into knowledge. In radiation oncology, medical physicists need to be familiar with the basic IT infrastructure that makes it possible to transfer and transform data through clinical processes that ultimately control radiation treatment delivery. The application of informatics continues with patient outcomes. Typically, this happens through participation in national protocols (e.g. RTOG). While they provide a framework for evidence‐based medicine, the data are often limited to parameters that were designed to test a pre‐defined hypothesis. As the ability to acquire and distribute data increases, we may be able to adopt data mining approaches to discover knowledge, even without asking specific questions. While simple database queries can efficiently provide statistical information (e.g. the NCI Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results, SEER), data mining seeks hidden patterns through clustering, classification, regression and association. These principles can be applied to large volumes of concisely described data sets, similar to what can be found in clinical trials. Researchers in radiation oncology informatics are developing the infrastructure to acquire large data sets. The Radiation Oncology Data Alliance (RODA) initiative aims to provide online aggregate de‐identified data from participating users of the MOSAIQ EMR. Borrowing from the field of astronomy, researchers from Johns Hopkins used the SkyServer framework to build the OncoSpace project. The NCI caBIG (Cancer Bioinformatics Grid) also provides infrastructure support. Data analytics have also been developing in parallel, with researchers structuring the data collection phases to answer questions in Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER). While a majority of researchers look for links between treatment and outcome, others have used informatics to improve not only the efficiency and business of providing care but also its quality and safety, which ultimately affects outcome.Learning Objectives:1. Review the information technology and infrastructure required to deliver radiation therapy.2. Understand the use of informatics in radiotherapy clinical trials.3. Learn the basics of data mining and its applicability to radiation oncology.4. Become familiar with the information technology that can be leveraged to improve clinical operations.
TH‐C‐224‐02: Economic Focus: Practical Aspects
Authors: White G 
Published: November 2011

The Continuing Medical Physics Consultation CPT© code (77336) is one of only two codes that explicitly recognize the work effort of the Medical Physicist in the title and text. It provides the foundation for the reimbursement of clinical medical physics services in radiation oncology departments. As the complexity of the work done by the Medical Physicist increases, the valuation of this code has been decreasing. In this presentation, we will review the components of the work process that give rise to the code, the process by which the code is assigned a relative value, the recent changes to the valuation in both the Hospital Outpatient Payment system and the Medicare Fee Schedule, and strategies for returning the value of the code to an appropriate level.Learning Objectives:1. Understand the components of the work effort associated with the Continuing Medical Physics Consultation CPT© code (77336)2. Understand how the code is valued and priced by Medicare3. Offer opinions and comments on strategies to properly value the CPT© code 773364. Implement procedures in the clinic that properly reflect the description of the code provided by AAPM and ASTRO
TH‐C‐224‐03: Medical Physicistˈs Role in Coding, Billing and Electronic Recording
Authors: Bagne F 
Published: November 2011

Purpose: The presentation is intended to introduce and educate medical physicists as to the vast new opportunities that are available for advancement in their careers. This is particularly significant when considering the turbulent nationˈs economy and the shrinking available funds for health care services.Method and Materials: Medical Physicists, through their ever‐expanding role, may now have an opportunity to considerably increase their influence in a medical setting, secure their positions and gain additional monitory rewards. It is of no dispute that the long term success of a medical practice is crucially dependent on reducing the cost of operation and increasing its revenue. In addition to providing competent, accurate and advanced medical service, a practice must utilize correct CPT coding; complete charge submission to Medicare, Medicaid and insurance carriers as well as full collection of the payments owed. Finally, an advanced Electronic Medical Recording (EMR) system is essential for the future survival of a medical practice.First, the role of medical physicists in correct coding and optimization of billing for radiation oncology, radiology and nuclear medicine is discussed. Examples will be provided in the areas where medical physicists can maximize departmental income. Next, the process of selecting an EMR system will be presented in detail. The criteria for a complete EMR system are discussed and the available systems currently on the market are compared. Lastly, factors to consider when searching for an EMR system are outlined and the necessity of each factor is emphasized.Conclusion: Medical physicists have the potential to expand their role in a free‐standing medical practice, hospital department or a medical physics consulting service organization by assuming the additional responsibilities for coding, billing and EMR. It is highly recommended that medical physicistsˈ training and education include knowledge and familiarity in the above areas.
TH‐C‐BRB‐03: Reconstructing Images of Prompt Gammas Emitted during Proton Radiotherapy
Authors: Peterson S , Polf J , Mackin D , Beddar S , Gillin M 
Published: November 2011

Purpose: Recent studies have shown that prompt gammas emitted during proton therapy are strongly correlated to the distribution of dose and proton beam range in the patient. This has led to an increasing interest in the measurement of prompt gammas as a means of providing in‐vivo beam range verification. The purpose of this work was to investigate the feasibility of reconstructing images of prompt gamma emission from tissues irradiated during proton radiotherapy. Methods: For this study we developed an iterative image reconstruction program based on the Stochastic Origin Ensembles (SOE) technique that used data calculated using a Monte Carlo (MC) model of prompt gamma measurement by a 3‐stage Compton camera during proton irradiation. We studied the ability of the SOE technique to reconstruct 2D and 3D images that accurately reproduced the prompt gamma distribution in irradiated tissue phantoms as a function of image pixel size, number of measured prompt gammas, and number of iterations performed by the reconstruction program. Results: Using data from our MC model, we were able to reconstruct images of the prompt gamma emission profile in tissue phantoms irradiated with a clinical proton beams (pencil beam, broad beam, and spread out Bragg peak). The beam range in the reconstructed images agreed with the prompt emission range to within 1–2 mm for reconstructions with 1 mm pixel size, 10,000 iterations, and using 1.5 million measured prompt gammas. Conclusions: We conclude that it is possible to reconstruct both 2D and 3D images of prompt gamma ray emission during proton radiotherapy. Although, the reconstruction algorithm used in this study is not optimal and much more development is needed, we believe the image resolution (1–2 mm) achieved in this study shows the feasibility of prompt gamma imaging (PGI) as clinical technique for verifying in‐vivo dose range for proton radiotherapy.This work was supported by award number R21CA137362 from the National Cancer Institute.
TH‐C‐BRB‐10: Scanned Proton Pencil Beamˈs Lateral Profile Library to Describe the Spot Dose Characteristics
Authors: Anand A , Sahoo N , Zhu X , Titt U , Sawakuchi G , Li Y , Poenisch F , Amos R , Suzuki K , Ciangaru G , Mohan R , Gillin M 
Published: November 2011

Purpose: To create a comprehensive data library of lateral dose profiles to characterize proton pencil beam spots (PPBS) with wide range of energies available for clinical use. Methods: To improve accuracy of dose modeling by the treatment planning system, a comprehensive data library of measured PPBS profiles has been created. At our institution, there are 94 energies available for spot scanned proton beams. For each energy, lateral dose profiles of PPBS in water have been measured at several depths. A pinpoint chamber with an active volume of 0.015 cm3 was used to collect relative dose profiles in water tank using a fixed SSD setup. Both in‐line and cross‐ line relative dose profiles of PPBS have been measured and analyzed. A PTW Bragg peak chamber (BPC) was used to obtain the absolute planar integral spot dose (PISD) of these PPBS at the respective depths of measurements. A structured query language based data repository has been created for query and retrieval of the details of dosimetry data of these PPBS. Results: PPBS characteristics, such as full width half maximum, the PISD (Gy‐cm2/MU) and integral spread of the PISD along the central axis have been tabulated for all available beam energies. The availability of this database allows the study of the spot size distribution as a function of energy and depth. Additionally, the measured data also provides the critical long tail dose correction factors (LTDCF) for the BPC measured PISD as a function of energy and depth. Conclusions: The lateral profiles measured for 94 different energies, has provided useful information about the effect of multiple Coulomb scattering and nuclear halo effect on the propagation of PPBS in water, and spot sizes as a function of energy and depths. The database provides a comprehensive library of lateral profiles of PPBS for clinical and research uses.This project was partially supported by Varian Master Research Agreement, # CS2005‐00012856SP andNIH/NCI Grant 5‐P01CA021239‐30.
TH‐C‐214‐01: Use of Functional and Molecular Imaging for Treatment Planning
Authors: Jeraj R 
Published: November 2011

The next significant advance in cancer therapy will occur with the paradigm shift from a population‐based to a personalized patient‐based dose prescription. The most feasible way to assess biological information necessary to migrate to personalized prescription is to utilize in vivo functional and molecular imaging. In radiation therapy this paradigm shift will not lead only to adjustment of the total dose prescribed, but also to transition from the current standard of uniform dose prescription to non‐ uniform dose prescription — the process most often termed “dose‐painting”. While current technologies enable delivery of such dose distributions through image‐guided intensity modulated radiotherapy, several questions remain, such as which biological phenotypes should be preferentially targeted, how well can we characterize them with functional and molecular imaging and how much should we modulate the dose? This symposium will review the current status of functional and molecular imaging for treatment planning, discuss its limitations and provide the clinical background of its potential use and application.Learning objectives:1. To learn about the potential of functional and molecular imaging in treatment planning2. To learn about the limitations of PET and MRI imaging for treatment planning3. To learn about the clinical aspects of functional and molecular imaging in treatment planning