Model-based evaluation of image-guided fractionated whole-brain radiation therapy in pediatric diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma xenografts.

Radiation therapy (RT) is currently the standard treatment for diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG), the most common cause of death in children with brain cancer. A pharmacodynamic model was developed to describe the radiation-induced tumor shrinkage and overall survival in mice bearing DIPG. CD1-nude mice were implanted in the brain cortex with luciferase-labeled patient-derived orthotopic xenografts of DIPG (SJDIPGx7 H3F3A and SJDIPGx37 H3F3A ).

Preclinical Modeling of Image-Guided Craniospinal Irradiation for Very-High-Risk Medulloblastoma.

Purpose: Craniospinal irradiation (CSI) is a crucial component of treatment for medulloblastoma (MB), a brain tumor clinically stratified into prognostically distinct molecular subgroups. Preclinical models of clinically relevant CSI offer the potential to study radiation dose and volume effects in these subgroups and to identify subgroup-specific combination adjuvant therapies, particularly for very-high-risk MB in which treatments are often unsuccessful.

Methods And Materials: The commercially available Small Animal Radiation Research Platform equipped with a motorized variable collimator was used for image-guided CSI.

In vitro effects of 3 common arthroscopic instruments on articular cartilage.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to compare chondroplasty performed with an ExoJet high-pressure fluid-driven burr (Mitek, Norwood, MA), a mechanical shaver, and a bipolar radiofrequency (RF) wand on articular cartilage-covered condyles taken from sheep cadavers that were induced to have an osteoarthritic-like condition, and corresponding healthy control tissue.

Type Of Study: Experimental designed animal cadaveric, biochemical, and histologic study.

Methods: Sheep condyles were used as a source of articular cartilage.

Shaver, bipolar radiofrequency, and saline jet instruments for cutting meniscal tissue: a comparative experimental study on sheep menisci.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to compare the quality of meniscal tissue cut with 3 different surgical instruments (traditional shavers, bipolar radiofrequency (RF) wands, and a high-pressure saline jet) and that of control menisci.

Type Of Study: Experimental design, biochemical and histologic study.

Methods: Sixty samples of sheep menisci were separated into 4 groups.