Image guidance, the way forward for radiotherapy

Uwe Oelfke from the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg, explains how image-guided radiation therapy (IGRT) can address one of the key challenges in modern radiotherapy – namely how to deliver a lethal dose of radiation to a tumour while sparing surrounding healthy tissue. The problem is that radiotherapy generally involves directing an invisible beam at an invisible tumour, based on patient images acquired prior to the treatment. Oelfke explains how IGRT involves acquiring additional images of the patient in the treatment position, immediately before or during radiation treatment, ensuring that the beam is precisely targeted at the tumour.

 

Molecular imaging

Interview with Simon Cherry from the University of California,  incoming editor-in-chief of the journal Physics in Medicine and Biology.

Cherry focuses on the benefits of "molecular imaging", which can pinpoint the biochemical and molecular changes that accompany the very early stages of chronic diseases such as cancer or neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's. As Cherry explains, such information is impossible to obtain with traditional clinical-imaging techniques such as X-ray or MRI, which largely reveal structural changes in the human body.

Cherry also explains how the Cerenkov effect – a well-established physical phenomenon – is now being exploited within the medical arena. The effect occurs when certain radionuclides, in addition to emitting gamma rays, also give off charged particles that, temporarily at least, travel through tissue faster than light in that medium. The particles emit characteristic "Cerenkov radiation" that can be used for imaging purposes. "Cerenkov luminescence imaging" is particularly useful for radionuclides such as yttrium-90 that do not emit any gamma rays and so are not easy to image by other means.

Yoav Medan: Ultrasound surgery -- healing without cuts

Imagine having a surgery with no knives involved. At TEDMED, surgeon Yoav Medan shares a technique that uses MRI to find trouble spots and focused ultrasound to treat such issues as brain lesions, uterine fibroids and several kinds of cancerous growths.

Other TED Talks

The Science of Seeing Inside Your Body

Find out how scientists build machines that do what our eyes cannot - see inside the human body.

Medical imaging:  X-rays, nuclear medicine, Ct-scanning, magnetic resonance imaging, pet scanning.

Medical Imaging: Getting Under Your Skin

This is a very good lecture!

Sound, motion, and a bit of fury pulse through this dynamic investigation into several imaging techniques used to examine the human body. Physicist Paul Lyman immediately captures the attention of his audience with his entrance, bumping down the long flight of lecture-room stairs to the front of the room on his bicycle. He hops off, removes his helmet and plunges into the world of X rays, computer tomography (CT scan), nuclear magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and ultrasound.

Source:  UW-Milwaukee Science Bag

Other UWM Science Bag videos