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Dr. Luiza Bondar (Erasmus MC)
| Speaker: |
Dr. Luiza Bondar (Erasmus
MC)
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| Date: |
Wednesday February 16, 2011
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| Title: |
A
novel radiotherapy treatment strategy for cervical cancer patients
based on mathematical modeling of internal organ motion
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Abstract
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Radiation
therapy
(RT) aims to kill cancer cells by using high doses of ionising
radiation. Modern techniques such as intensity modulated RT (IMRT)
enable highly conformal dose distributions that shape tightly around
the organ containing the tumor while producing little damage to the
surrounding tissue.
For patients with cervical cancer, the large day-to-day motion of the
cervix and uterus increases the risk of under-dosing the tumor, thus
limiting the benefits of IMRT. To provide adequate dose coverage to the
tumor while reducing the dose to the healthy tissue, a new IMRT
treatment was designed. The new treatment strategy uses a
patient-specific motion model that predicts the likely cervix-uterus
shape and position during RT treatment. The model was generated by
using a novel non-rigid image registration method that allows us to
assess the changes in the patient anatomy as viewed in two computer
tomography (CT) images acquired before the start of the treatment.
After extensive validation tests the model-based treatment was
introduced in the clinic. So far, four patients finalised their
treatment and several others are currently under treatment. Current
work on automatic segmentation of daily acquired cone beam CT images
could contribute to further increase the accuracy of the treatment.
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