Feasibility of using the micro CT imaging system as the conformal radiation therapy facility for small animals

Shu-Ju Tu; Hui-Ling Hsieh; Tsi-Chian Chao; Chung-Chi Lee

doi:10.1117/12.813598

13 March 2009 Feasibility of using the micro CT imaging system as the conformal radiation therapy facility for small animals

Shu-Ju Tu, Hui-Ling Hsieh, Tsi-Chian Chao, Chung-Chi Lee

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 7258, Medical Imaging 2009: Physics of Medical Imaging; 72585T (2009) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.813598
Event: SPIE Medical Imaging, 2009, Lake Buena Vista (Orlando Area), Florida, United States

Abstract

In recent years, there has been an increasing number of integration for using the micro CT scanners, either home-built bench-top or commercially made, as the small animal radiation therapy irradiator in several research groups. In this paper, we study the x-ray beam physics such as the percentage depth dose distribution and their dose conformity characteristics using Monte Carlo simulation method for a series of photon energy levels often found in the current commercial micro CT imaging systems. Micro CT scanners have been one of the key imaging modalities in the current state-of-the-art molecular imaging techniques and their applications in various biomedical research areas have been increasing tremendously in recent years due to the ultra-high image quality. Tumor growth development and the corresponding therapeutic response in the small animal model study can be evaluated by a micro CT imaging system. In the most current advanced commercially available micro CT units, the nominal spatial resolution is typically at the scale of 10.0 μm or less. In current research trend, there have been an increasing number of investigations for the applications of x-ray units to organ-specific and whole-body radiation in dedicated small animal model study. In particular, scientists have identified that the integrated micro CT imagers can be commissioned as the dual-purpose unit for the high spatial resolution image acquisition and radiation delivery. As we all realized that small animal models are important and critical in several studies of experimental (or pre-clinical) radiation therapy research. In this paper, a Monte Carlo code (Penelope) was used to calculate the percentage depth dose distributions at different photon energy levels. Also the corresponding iso-dose contour curves were computed and plotted from the circular CT scanning geometry to study the desired dose conformity property. We note that the selected photon energy range that is included in this work is often included in the current commercial micro CT systems.

Citation Download Citation

Shu-Ju Tu, Hui-Ling Hsieh, Tsi-Chian Chao, and Chung-Chi Lee "Feasibility of using the micro CT imaging system as the conformal radiation therapy facility for small animals", Proc. SPIE 7258, Medical Imaging 2009: Physics of Medical Imaging, 72585T (13 March 2009); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.813598

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