Cancer radiotherapy often lowers patients' lymphocyte counts. This radiation induced lymphopenia is significantly correlated with survival for certain treatment sites and cancer types. Despite this, the dose to lymphocytes is not explicitly minimised during clinical treatment planning.
Across patients, a given treatment modality, such as photon or proton therapy (PT), may not...
Functional connectivity (FC) has a high energetic demand as demonstrated by hybrid [18F]-Flurodeoxyglucose (FDG) PET and resting state functional MRI (rsfMRI) studies (Tomasi et al., 2013). Regional Homogeneity (ReHo), a rsfMRI local connectivity metric, displays the strongest correlation with metabolism in healthy brain (Aiello et al.,2015), which is reduced in Alzheimer's (AD), potentially...
Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) is a non-invasive tool used to assess cerebral health by estimating tissue blood content and oxygenation from measurements of light absorption. To evaluate the accuracy of NIRS devices and algorithms, tissue-mimicking phantoms (TMPs) are used. TMPs typically consist of light-scattering media and light-absorbing dyes, such as Intralipid and indocyanine green...
At the organ and tissue level, the circulation relies on branching networks of microvessels to supply oxygen and other nutrients to all cells in support of metabolism, as well as remove metabolic waste, and derangement of the structure or function of these networks is directly linked to tissue dysfunction. Over a wide range of diameters, these networks are binary trees and display distinct...
With external beam radiotherapy being a key tool in treating cancer, the possible harmful side effects, e.g. secondary cancer, need to be accounted for and hopefully minimized. As proton therapy (PT) typically spares more healthy tissue than photon therapy, PT may potentially lower the rate of secondary cancers in treated patients. Due to a lack of valid patient data, simulations are required...
