Estimation of linear quadratic (LQ) model parameter alpha/beta (α/β) and biologically effective dose (BED) for acute normal tissue reactions in head and neck malignancies

Purpose: Linear-Quadratic (LQ) model has been widely used for describing radiobiological effectiveness of various fractionation schedules on tumour as well as normal tissues. This study estimates α/β for acute normal tissue reactions using Fe-plot method.Methods: 50 cases of locally advanced head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (stage III and IV) treated with external beam radiotherapy were included in this study. Patients were randomly distributed into Hyper-fractionation (HF) arm (1.2 Gy/fraction, twice daily, 6 hours apart) and conventional fractionation (CF) arm (2 Gy/fraction, once daily) with 25 cases in each arm. α/β and BED were calculated for acute normal tissue reactions using Fe-plot method.Results: In our study, the estimated values of α/β for RTOG (Radiation Therapy Oncology Group) grade 1, 2 and 3 skin reactions were 11.2 Gy, 10.1 Gy and 9 Gy respectively. Estimated values of α/β for RTOG grade 1, 2 and 3 mucosal reactions were 9.7 Gy, 8.0 Gy and 9.1 Gy respectively. For Hyper-fractionation arm, calculated BED values for grade 1, 2 and 3 skin reactions were 54.45 Gy11.239, 66.90 Gy10.114 and 73.43Gy9.001 respectively and for grade 1, 2 and 3 mucosal reactions were 33.5 Gy9.797, 57.8 Gy8.011 and 70.8 Gy9.106 respectively. For conventional fractionation arm, calculated BED values for grade 1, 2 and 3 skin reactions were 54.09 Gy11.239, 66.88 Gy10.114 and 73.33 Gy9.001 respectively and for grade 1, 2 and 3 mucosal reactions were 33.52 Gy9.797, 57.68 Gy8.011 and 70.73 Gy9.106 respectively.Conclusion: LQ model and the concept of BED provide an excellent tool to compare different fractionation schedules in radiotherapy. The estimated values of α/β for acute reacting normal tissues are in good agreement with the available literature

Fractional Derivative Based Weighted Skip Connections for Satellite Image Road Segmentation

Segmentation of a road portion from a satellite image is challenging due to its complex background, occlusion, shadows, clouds, and other optical artifacts. One must combine both local and global cues for an accurate and continuous/connected road network extraction. This paper proposes a model using fractional derivative-based weighted skip connections on a densely connected convolutional neural network for road segmentation. Weights corresponding to the skip connections are determined using Grunwald-Letnikov fractional derivative. Fractional derivatives being non-local in nature incorporates memory into the system and thereby combine both local and global features. Experiments have been performed on two open source widely used benchmark databases viz. Massachusetts Road database (MRD) and Ottawa Road database (ORD). Both these datasets represent different road topography and network structure including varying road widths and complexities. Result reveals that the proposed system demonstrated better performance than the other state-of-the-art methods by achieving an F1-score of 0.748 and the mIoU of 0.787 at fractional order 0.4 on the MRD and a mIoU of 0.9062 at fractional order 0.5 on the ORD

A comparative study of weekly versus daily schedule of hypofractionated palliative radiotherapy with concurrent chemotherapy in the treatment of locally advanced head and neck cancer

Background:Most head and neck cancer cases and deaths are due to both individual predispositions linked to certain genetic characteristics, and exposure to carcinogens caused by lifestyle behaviors. We compared weekly versus daily schedule of hypofractionated palliative radiotherapy with concurrent chemotherapy in the treatment of locally advanced head and neck cancer.Materials & Methods:Fifty patients, randomly selected were divided in to two groups of 25 patients each. Group A: - These patients received injection Cisplatin 40 mg/m 2 given intravenously 2 hrs infusion six hour before radiation and repeated weekly for 6 cycles. Group B: - This group consisted of randomly selected, previously untreated 25 patient of squamous cell carcinoma of head and neck. Thesepatients received injection Cisplatin 40mg/m 2 given intravenously 2 hrs infusion six hour before radiation and repeated weekly for 3 cycles. Results: Incidence of well differentiated histology was 20% in both arm, poor differentiated was 8 % and 4% respectively in arm-A and Arm-B, undifferentiated was 52% and 44% respectively in arm-A and arm-B. It was observed that moderately differentiated squamous cell carcinoma was the commonest in both arm-A and arm-B i.e. 13(52%) in arm-A and 11(44%) in arm-B. The P value was insignificant in each group. Among the arm-A and arm-B the complete response is 20% and 36% (χ2 = 4.571, p=0.032), the partial response is 52% and 44% (χ2 = 0.667, p=O.414). Stable disease in the arm-A and in arm-B was 12% and 8% (χ2 = 0.800, p=O.371) respectively and progressive disease was 16% and 12% respectively (χ2 = 0.571 p=O.449).Conclusion: Hypofractionated radiotherapy with either 600cGy per fraction given weekly or 300cGy per fraction given daily along with concurrent chemotherapy are feasible options for palliation in advanced head and neck cancers. 300cGy given daily schedule is associated with slightly higher acute reactions but increases the chances of complete response. The 300cGy daily arm patients completed treatment in 3 weeks as against 6 weeks for 600cGy weekly arm. 600cGy weekly radiotherapy given on Saturday is a feasible alternative to daily 300cGy schedule with lesser burden to the busy radiotherapy department

Solitary brain metastasis as an initial manifestation of gall bladder carcinoma

Gallbladder cancer is a common malignancy in Northern India, and it accounts for 2-4% of all malignant gastrointestinal tumors. It is an aggressive tumor with early dissemination to liver and lymph nodes and associated with poor prognosis. Systemic metastases from gall bladder carcinoma (Ca) frequently occur; however, metastatic involvement of the central nervous system is rare and late manifestation and remains an ominous sign. Initial presentation of gall bladder Ca with brain metastasis is rare. We report a case of 65-year-old women who initially presented with a solitary brain metastasis from an adenocarcinoma of the gallbladder, which was diagnosed incidentally when the patient presented with headache, vomiting, and right temporal region swelling. Palliative chemotherapy and cranial radiotherapy were prescribed. She is symptom-free from 3 months after the completion of the treatment

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Not AvailableClimate change has adversely affected the tree species growth throughout the globe. In Indian Himalayas, Celtis australis is an important agroforestry tree species which is highly exploited for domestic use (fuel wood, fodder, and small timber), and thus the growth and biomass production linked to the species bears importance. However, growth, biomass, and carbon stock of C. australis can be improved if genetically superior planting material is used under agroforestry programmes. Therefore, seed source (SS) variation studies in C. australis were initiated to identify potential germplasm for improving the species productivity and climate resilience. Experimental results showed that genotypic variation for height, collar diameter, and total biomass were found higher than corresponding environmental variance after four years. In the field environment, highest plant growth was recorded in Tehri SS (Height: 4.88 m; Diameter: 9.69 cm) and Solan SS (Height: 4.81 m; Diameter: 8.64 cm), compared to rest of the seed sources. In contrast, least plant growth (Height: 3.46 m; Diameter 5.19 cm) was observed in Dehradun SS. Likewise, biomass production was assessed maximum (207 t ha 1) in Tehri SS and it was minimum (44 t ha 1) in Dehradun SS. In different seed sources, the estimated carbon stock and carbon sequestration was ranged between 33 103 t ha 1 and 99e381 t ha 1, respectively. Overall, growth, biomass, carbon stock, and carbon sequestration confirmed the superiority of Tehri SS over rest of the SS, after four years of field experiment. Moreover, Tehri SS showed better mitigation and adaptation potential for changing climate compared to rest of the SS, because of its superiority in term of the growth performance, biomass production, carbon stock, and carbon sequestration. The results indicated that SS induced genetic variation has the tremendous potential to improve the productivity and climate change mitigation and adaptation in C. australis. Therefore, selection of genetically diverse seed sources and evaluation of their potential (adaptive and mitigate) could be one of the futuristic strategies for climate change related fine-tuning of agroforestry practicesNot Availabl