Designing an analysis system for imaging process from bone scintigraphy as a potential predictor for validation of bone metastases

Cancer is a disease that is the leading cause of death worldwide. In 2012, there were 8.2 million deaths caused by cancer. Cancer suffered by patients can metastasize to other body parts, such as the lungs, liver, brain, and bones. The risk of bone metastases becomes higher after cancer has spread to other body tissues, so it is necessary to do more specific bone examinations. Bone scintigraphy is one of the applications from nuclear medicine that utilizes 99mTc radioactive material as a radio-pharmaceutical for bone scanning examinations. Bone scintigraphy is done to determine the presence of metastases in the bone caused by cancer. This bone scan is an image capture method with high sensitivity but has the disadvantage of not clearly distinguishing the presence of hotspots that appear due to metastases, trauma, or other abnormalities in the bones. This research aims to create an analysis system design based on image processing scripts using MATLAB. Medical physicists and nuclear medicine technicians can later use this system to conduct quantitative analysis as a reliable predictor system that validates visual analysis of hotspots suspected of being metastasis of cancer. Based on the result, prediction of the presence of bone metastasis by quantitative analysis using digital image processing techniques can be made. With a significance level of 5%, a prediction results using the analysis system design are compatible with the results of the diagnosis obtained from the medical record data of the patient of (85.67% ± 12.71%)

Boron Neutron Capture Therapy for Cancer: Future Prospects in Indonesia

Boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT) is a form of cancer therapy based on the interaction of low-energy thermal neutrons and boron-10 (10-B) to produce alpha radiation from He-4 and Li-7 with a high linear energy transfer. A beam of neutrons irradiates a boron drug injected into the tumor, resulting in the boron-injected cancer cells receiving a lethal dose of radiation with the surrounding, healthy cells being minimally affected. Two boron drugs have been used clinically in BNCT, boron sodium captate (BSH) and borophenylalanine (BPA), while a third, pentagamaboronon-0 (PGB-0), is currently under development in the Faculty of Pharmacy of Universitas Gadjah Mada, Indonesia. In Indonesia, there has been a growing interest in the study and use of BNCT to treat cancer, as this method is expected to be safer and more effective than traditional cancer treatment methods