Semi-automated construction of patient individualised clinical target volumes for radiotherapy treatment of glioblastoma utilising diffusion tensor decomposition maps.

Objectives: Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is a highly infiltrative primary brain tumour with an aggressive clinical course. Diffusion tensor imaging (DT-MRI or DTI) is a recently developed technique capable of visualising subclinical tumour spread into adjacent brain tissue. Tensor decomposition through and maps can be used for planning of treatment.

Applying physical science techniques and CERN technology to an unsolved problem in radiation treatment for cancer: the multidisciplinary 'VoxTox' research programme.

The VoxTox research programme has applied expertise from the physical sciences to the problem of radiotherapy toxicity, bringing together expertise from engineering, mathematics, high energy physics (including the Large Hadron Collider), medical physics and radiation oncology. In our initial cohort of 109 men treated with curative radiotherapy for prostate cancer, daily image guidance computed tomography (CT) scans have been used to calculate delivered dose to the rectum, as distinct from planned dose, using an automated approach. Clinical toxicity data have been collected, allowing us to address the hypothesis that delivered dose provides a better predictor of toxicity than planned dose.

Towards Quantitative Evaluation of Tissue Absorption Coefficients Using Light Fluence Correction in Optoacoustic Tomography.

Optoacoustic tomography is a fast developing imaging modality, combining the high contrast available from optical excitation of tissue with the high resolution and penetration depth of ultrasound detection. Light is subject to both absorption and scattering when traveling through tissue; adequate knowledge of tissue optical properties and hence the spatial fluence distribution is required to create an optoacoustic image that is directly proportional to chromophore concentrations at all depths. Using data from a commercial multispectral optoacoustic tomography (MSOT) system, we implemented an iterative optimization for fluence correction based on a finite-element implementation of the delta-Eddington approximation to the Radiative Transfer Equation (RTE).