CFM Lunch Seminar

Tuesday, March 28, Olin Room 107, 12 pm

Prof. James Ververs will be the guest speaker.  The title of his abstract is “Dosimeters in Radiation Oncology.”

This is our monthly CFM Seminar and lunch will be provided in the Olin lobby lounge beginning at 11:30 am.

 

Abstract:

Radiation therapy (RT) is delivered in clinical radiation oncology departments. In the US alone, these treatments are received by hundreds of thousands of cancer patients every year. In general, the therapeutic goal is to deliver a tumoricidal dose to a focused area (the “target”) while minimizing, as much as possible, the dose to surrounding organs and tissues. Dosimeters are the detectors used to measure radiation dose.

This talk will focus on the fundamental need for direct measurement as the underpinning of the RT process. Historical examples of what can happen when calculation results are presumed, rather than measured and verified, will be shared. The talk will also present some fundamentals of the sources used to deliver RT and the dosimeter types commonly used to perform a variety of clinically necessary measurements. Applications of the resulting measured data will be discussed, along with the materials used in dosimeters designed for different purposes. Some limitations of current dosimeters will also be described, along with a potential solution which we are actively exploring, in collaboration with the Jurchescu lab, as a novel type of dosimeter.