Advanced design of radiotherapy equipment : IORT and small animal irradiators

Cancer is a major public health problem worldwide and the leading cause of death in Spain [1]. Radiotherapy plays an important role in cancer treatment with approximately 50% of all cancer patients receiving radiation therapy during the course of their illness [2], [3]. However, radiation damages both healthy and cancerous tissues and improving the therapeutic index (the relationship between the probability of tumor control and the likelihood of normal tissue damage) is a constant challenge in radiotherapy [4]. Consequently, optimizing treatment plans (TP) is of utmost importance [5]. In this thesis we present two projects in collaboration with GMV [6] and SEDECAL [7] that aim to this goal. On the one hand, we propose a design for a small animal x-ray irradiator to be used in preclinical research. This kind of devices serve to downscale the clinical scenario to the laboratory in order to study the radiobiological response and improve clinical outcomes [8]. Our proposal consists of a conventional X-ray tube and a self-shielded cabinet, which make the system affordable and suitable to use without disruption inexisting laboratories..

Fluorescence cross-correlation spectroscopy to study hemodynamics

[EN] In the recent years a series of optical correlation techniques have been developed in order to be able to measure flow velocity with high spatial resolution while being non-invasive in order to be employed in-vivo on biological organisms. The technique employed in my thesis work, scanning laser image correlation (SLIC), is a powerful approach for the detection of flow motions because it overcomes some limitations of the classical spectroscopy techniques. SLIC method consists in repeated laser scans over a linear pattern and on the cross correlation of the signal emitted by the excited fluorophores in different positions along the scan line. Therefore, the resulting measurements for flow velocity are really accurate