Analisys of in vivo dosimetry using semiconductor detectors in a Co-60 radiotherapy beam

Results of in vivo dosimetry carried out on the Alcyon Co-60 radiotherapeutical beam using the SCANDITRONIX DPD-3 system with EDE-5-type semiconductor defectors, will be presented.Differences Between planned and measured entrance dose for open fields and for fields formed using wedge compensation filters were studied over a period of 15 months, for patients positioned to receive their first fraction. Of the different sites studied, most were head&neck and breast localizations

Réalisation d'un spectromètre de coïncidences à sept compteurs NaI

Un multicompteur comprenant sept détecteurs NaI(T1) 3" x 3" a été construit. Il permet de mesurer simultanément les valeurs correspondant à 16 angles de la fonction de corrélation angulaire W(θ1, θ 2, ϕ) ou les sept géométries définies par Litherland et Ferguson. Cet ensemble a été expérimenté avec succès dans le cas de corrélations angulaires bien connues aussi bien en désintégrations radioactives qu'en réactions nucléaires

IRREGULARITIES IN THE YRAST LINE OF 156Er

The variation of the moment of inertia vs the rotational frequency has been investigated at high spin values using the141Pr(19F, 4nγ) 156Er reaction. In addition to the backbending at I = 12 ħ, a second one has been found at I = 26 ħ. Calculations performed by the Warsaw group with the HFB cranking model suggest a probable neutron effect

Breast cancer therapy for BRCA1 carriers: moving towards platinum standard?

Recently Byrski et al. reported the first-ever breast cancer (BC) study, which specifically selected BRCA1-carriers for the neoadjuvant treatment and used monotherapy by cisplatin instead of conventional schemes. Although the TNM staging of the recruited patients was apparently more favorable than in most of published neoadjuvant trials, the results of Byrski et al. clearly outperform any historical data. Indeed, 9 of 10 BRCA1-associated BC demonstrated complete pathological response to the cisplatin treatment, i.e. these women have good chances to be ultimately cured from the cancer disease. High sensitivity of BRCA1-related tumors to platinating agents has been discussed for years, but it took almost a decade to translate convincing laboratory findings into first clinical observations. With increasing stratification of tumor disease entities for molecular subtypes and rapidly growing armamentarium of cancer drugs, it is getting technically and ethically impossible to subject all promising treatment options to the large randomized prospective clinical trials. Therefore, alternative approaches for initial drugs evaluation are highly required, and one of the choices is to extract maximum benefit from already available collections of biological material and medical charts. For example, many thousands of BC patients around the world have already been subjected to second- or third-line therapy with platinum agents, but the association between BRCA status and response to the treatment has not been systematically evaluated in these women. While potential biases of retrospective studies are widely acknowledged, it is frequently ignored that the use of archival collections may provide preliminary answers for long-standing questions within days instead of years. However, even elegantly-designed, small-sized, hypothesis-generating retrospective studies may require multicenter efforts and somewhat cumbersome logistics, that may explain the surprising lack of historical data on the platinum-based treatment of BC in BRCA1 carriers

GAMMA-RAY TRANSITION ENERGY CORRELATIONS IN 156Er AND 160Yb

No abstract availabl

Some clinical applications of MTS-type TLD detectors

An important part of any QA programme for radiotherapy is verification, in vitro or in vivo, of calculated doses and dose distributions. We studied the clinical applicability of LiF:MG, Ti sintered TL detectors produced, as type MTS-N, by the Institute of Nuclear Physics in Kraków (INP). These are solid pellets of diam 4.5mm and 0.8mm thickness. The TL reader was a modified planchet-type 770A, also produced at the INP, with linear heating and computerised glow curve recording.For analysis of in vivo applications, we measured, in a water phantom, the dose at 14 points aroud the Standard gynaecological applicator of our SELECTRON LDR/MDR afterloading unit with Cs-137 pellets and compared the measured values with doses calculated at these points by the in-house developed SELKOM computer code used for planning gynaecological brachytherapy at the Centre of Oncology in Kraków (COK). Agreement to within 5% was stated.To demonstrate the applicability of MTS dosemeters in calibration dosimetry, we studied the accuracy, stability and reproducibility of a batch of 100 detectors over several readout cycles at doses ranging from 0.5 to 2.5 Gy. At 1 Gy, the relative standard deviation of Individual Calibration Factors (ICF) over six readout cycles did not exceed 2.5% indicating that the error of dose estimation using individual MTS detectors should not exceed 2%.In an intercomparison of Co-60 beams at the COK and at Louvain performed with MTS detectors agreement to within less than 0.5% was found with an accuracy better than 1%.This work is partly supported by KBN Polish State Committee for Scientific Research, Research Project No. 8T11E02908