Design and development of a new micro-beam treatment planning system: effectiveness of algorithms of optimization and dose calculations and potential of micro-beam treatment.

A new treatment planning system (TPS) was designed and developed for a new treatment system, which consisted of a micro-beam-enabled linac with robotics and a real-time tracking system. We also evaluated the effectiveness of the implemented algorithms of optimization and dose calculations in the TPS for the new treatment system. In the TPS, the optimization procedure consisted of the pseudo Beam's-Eye-View method for finding the optimized beam directions and the steepest-descent method for determination of beam intensities.

In vitro characterization of cells derived from chordoma cell line U-CH1 following treatment with X-rays, heavy ions and chemotherapeutic drugs.

Background: Chordoma, a rare cancer, is usually treated with surgery and/or radiation. However, very limited characterizations of chordoma cells are available due to a minimal availability (only two lines validated by now) and the extremely long doubling time. In order to overcome this situation, we successfully derived a cell line with a shorter doubling time from the first validated chordoma line U-CH1 and obtained invaluable cell biological data.

Management of the baseline shift using a new and simple method for respiratory-gated radiation therapy: detectability and effectiveness of a flexible monitoring system.

Purpose: In respiratory-gated radiation therapy, a baseline shift decreases the accuracy of target coverage and organs at risk (OAR) sparing. The effectiveness of audio-feedback and audio-visual feedback in correcting the baseline shift in the breathing pattern of the patient has been demonstrated previously. However, the baseline shift derived from the intrafraction motion of the patient's body cannot be corrected by these methods.