Physics in medicine and biology
-
Doppler ultrasound has shown promise in detecting and localizing internal bleeding. A mathematical approach was developed to describe the internal bleeding of the injured artery surrounded by tissue. This approach consisted of a two-dimensional (2D) model describing the injured vessel and a one-dimensional model (1D) mimicking the downstream of the vessel system. ⋯ Flow turbulence indicated by this approach was also observed in a color Doppler image in the form of a checkered color pattern. This approach might be useful for quantitative internal bleeding detection and localization. Also, the phase lag of the peak systolic velocity was indicated to be potential in the application of internal bleeding detection.
-
This study aims to quantify the effects of target motion and resultant motion artifacts in planning and megavoltage CT (MVCT) studies on the automatic registration processes of helical tomotherapy. Clinical and experimental data were used to derive an action level for patient repositioning on helical tomotherapy. Planning CT studies of a respiratory motion phantom were acquired using conventional and four-dimensional CT (4D CT) techniques. ⋯ Motion artifacts in the MVCT or planning CT studies changed the accuracy of the automatic registration process by less than 2.0%. The action level for patient repositioning using MVCT studies of 6 mm inter-slice spacing was determined to be 0.7, 1.1 and 0.6 mm in the x-, y- and z-directions, respectively. These action levels have the greatest effect on treatments for disease sites in the brain.
-
Previous work in this laboratory has demonstrated improved anatomic and functional images produced from high spectral and spatial resolution (HiSS) MRI of the water proton signal. The present work tests the hypothesis that different Fourier components of the water resonance represent anatomically and/or physiologically distinct populations of water molecules within each small image voxel. HiSS datasets were acquired from tomatoes and rodent tumors at 4.7 T using echo-planar spectroscopic imaging (spatial and spectral resolutions were 117-150 microm and 1.5-3.1 Hz, respectively). ⋯ Results demonstrate that off-peak FCIs differ significantly from the water peak-height image and that water resonances are often asymmetric. These results show that water signal at various frequency offsets from the peak of the water resonance come from water molecules in different anatomic/physiologic environments. Off-peak FCIs are a new source of structural and functional information and may have clinical utility.