The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center

To apply a proton procedure of optimizing spot weight and Ridge Filter (RF) to single-energy carbon pencil beam and evaluate it in a water phantom with a square-shape target in the center (prescription dose 50 Gy).

To determine the feasibility of using a high temporal resolution electronic dosimeter (NetDose+, manufactured by ThermoScientific) for patient-specific pharmacokinetic data collection and analysis for the immediate post-administration time-period prior to dis...

To assess different proton beam arrangements’ robustness for planning stereotactic body proton therapy (SBPT) to the liver.

Dose–volume histograms (DVHs) are widely used in external beam radiation therapy, but their applicability to Y-90 transarterial radioembolization (TARE) remains uncertain. In Y-90 TARE, absorbed dose maps are derived from post-therapy PET or bremsstrahlung SP...

Radiomics features are increasingly used for quantitative image analysis; however, their robustness to image acquisition and reconstruction parameters remains a critical concern. Field of view (FOV) variations can alter image sampling and intensity distributi...

To assess the accuracy of empirical relative biological effectiveness (RBE) models in predicting variations in intrinsic radiosensitivity using a comprehensive dataset of clonogenic cell survival.

Open-source software offers a transparent and cost-effective alternative to commercial, patient-specific quality assurance (PSQA) systems; however, clinical validation remains essential. This study aims to validate open-source Pylinac (PL) based gamma analysi...

To develop an optimization procedure of spot weight and ridge filter (RF) dimension for single-energy proton pencil beam and apply it to a water phantom with a square-shape target in the center (prescription dose 50 Gy).

Ultra-high dose rate (UHDR) beams (40Gy/s) compromise the accuracy of conventional reference ion chambers (ICs) due to saturation effects. The Exradin A30 is an ultra-thin parallel-plate IC featuring a 0.3 mm nominal electrode spacing to enhance the charge co...

This study investigates the limitations of Collapsed Cone Convolution (CCC) dose calculation algorithm in accurately modeling dose perturbations in nanoparticle-enhanced radiotherapy for lung tumors. The feasibility of CCC is compared with a Monte Carlo (MC)...

To assess the long-term reliability of in-air film dosimetry approach for quality assurance (QA) of Cs-137 blood irradiators using the measured data accumulated over 5 years.

Stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) has been shown effective in treating early-stage laryngeal cancer. However, treatment planning is challenging due to its demand of steep dose falloffs and strict dose constraints, which introduce lengthened planning...

To develop an automatable standard nomenclature for field name and description to reduce field labeling errors.

Accelerated partial breast irradiation (APBI) combined with online adaptive radiotherapy (OART) offers precise treatment of early-stage breast cancer, but inter-observer variability (IOV) in target delineation must be accounted for to maintain treatment quali...

Open-ended survey responses are extremely valuable since participants voluntarily share insights that they feel are necessary to express. The purpose of this study is to accurately reflect members’ perception of the AAPM climate, through analysis of open-ende...

In vivo dosimetry is almost exclusively limited to surface or intracavitary sites and is generally unable to measure dose directly in deeper tumors or nearby critical structures. An injectable Fricke gel dosimeter has been developed to address this limitation...

To develop prognostic models integrating delta radiomics from prostate-specific membrane antigen positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PSMA-PET/CT) and dosiomics with clinical variables to predict metastasis-free survival (MFS) in patients with lo...

To identify factors contributing to an increased trend in near miss gantry collisions and develop an effective mitigation program.

The goal of this project is to standardize and automate the QA program of a multi-location radiation oncology practice. Our practice includes eleven linear accelerators, five CT scanners, and four HDR afterloaders, across four separate treatment centers.

To evaluate the feasibility and adapt-to-shape (ATS) workflow efficiency of a novel UPFRONT "Brachy-like" Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy (SBRT) technique delivered via MR-LINAC. This upfront boost aims to deliver a steep-gradient high dose to a "Virtual-...

Radiopharmaceuticals, Theranostics, and Nuclear Medicine

Organ‑level breast dosimetry is essential for developing robust dose-response models of subsequent breast cancer (SBC) risk in female childhood cancer survivors. Historically, epidemiologic studies relied on surrogate metrics such as prescription dose due to...

Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology Physics

Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology Physics

Persistent difficulty in recruiting therapeutic medical physicists, particularly outside large metropolitan and/or academic centers, suggests a geographic mismatch between training locations and workforce demand. While residency programs have expanded nationa...

Professional

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Common contour evaluation metrics(e.g., DSC or HD) provide global summaries that can miss localized, anisotropic disagreements that drive clinically meaningful edits. Although surface-DSC(SDSC) better reflects boundary discrepancies, it typically uses a subje...

Radiotherapy treatment planning is a resource-intensive process characterized by multiple manual steps that can contribute to treatment delays and inter-observer variability. The Radiation Planning Assistant (RPA) is a web-based platform designed to deliver a...

Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology Physics

Medical physicists go through several failures in their career path, from student life to clinical or research training to being a staff of faculty. The mistakes/screw ups are learning experience for the individual or their local team but can also be a teachi...

Professional

In this preliminary study, we introduce an iterative implicit neural representation method for improving sparse‑view CBCT (INR-CBCT) for image-guided-radiotherapy.

Current anatomical and surgical literature provides only limited descriptions of the ligaments and connective tissue within the breast fascial system. Much of what is known comes from cadaveric dissections, a method that inherently disrupts the native archite...

IROC and Radiation Quality Assurance Lab monitor more than 2500 radiotherapy facilities worldwide to ensure accurate and consistent radiotherapy delivery. This study reviews the 30 year history of the anthropomorphic phantom program for advanced photon therap...

Cellular density (CD) in gliomas is of great clinical importance to guide treatment. A commonly used approach for estimating CD is based on imaging, by using Apparent Diffusion Coefficient (ADC) measurements derived from diffusion MRI. Cell membranes hinderin...

Cs-131 tile implant–based intracranial brachytherapy requires coordinated interdisciplinary efforts spanning imaging, source management, implantation, post-implant planning, and radiation safety. The extent of inter-institutional variability in these practice...

To design an anthropomorphic phantom that closely mimics a clinical brain metastases patient to assess the end-to-end performance of multi-lesion SRS treatments.

Nuclear medicine is undergoing a paradigm shift to produce images in units of activity concentration, analogous to PET imaging. Quantitative SPECT imaging requires system calibrations. In 2024, we formally incorporated routine quantitative calibrations and ve...

This study investigated performance assessment metrics that, when applied to artificial intelligence (AI) outputs designed to identify the presence of pneumonia on chest radiographs, best align with the subjective clinical opinion of radiologists.

To develop an automated CT quality control (QC) query system that retrieves, analyzes, and trends QC data and enables image artifact review across iPhone, iPad, and Computer platforms for 71 GE and Siemens CT scanners spanning nuclear medicine, interventional...

To develop a slice-specific CT organ dose library using Monte Carlo radiation transport simulations on a set of newborn, infant, and toddler (NIT) computational phantoms containing newly developed age-specific skeletal tissue models. This dose library forms t...

Annual linac beam scanning QA is time-intensive and often relies on manual data handling, spreadsheet analysis, and site-specific workflows. These steps can be tedious and inconsistent, even when the underlying measurements are solid. The goal of this work wa...

Minor and major errors may occur in both manual and automatic organ contouring process, such as mis-localization or severe under/over-segmentation. They can subsequently impact the accuracy of dose optimization and planning. This study aims to develop an auto...

Accurate planning of pelvic fixation is critical for complex orthopaedic and oncologic surgeries, yet current automated tools focus primarily on normal anatomy and do not account for patient-specific variations caused by tumors. We aim to develop an automated...

Routine CT quality assurance (QA) relies on visual inspection, where subtle non-uniformities can be difficult to identify consistently across scanners and readers. We developed an efficient, interpretable artificial intelligence-assisted tool that detects and...

Cyberattacks pose a growing threat to the continuity of radiation therapy services. Establishing contingency plans (CPs) is critical for rapid recovery post-cyberattack and for maintaining operational resilience. However, the extent of awareness, perceived im...

Brachytherapy dose calculations are commonly based on the AAPM TG-43 formalism, which assumes a homogeneous water medium. Although widely used for HDR and LDR brachytherapy, this assumption inadequately represents dose distributions in heterogeneous tissues,...

Deep-learning (DL) auto-segmentation is routinely used clinically, yet domain shift and vendor model upgrades can change behavior in non-intuitive ways. We present a regression-testing framework to commission upgraded commercial auto-contouring models and to...

Extravasation during radiopharmaceutical therapy can retain a substantial fraction of administered activity at the injection site, creating high local absorbed doses and potential tissue injury while reducing delivery to target tumors. For Lu-177 therapies, t...

Preplanning is a standard practice for MRI-Assisted Radiosurgery (MARS) LDR prostate brachytherapy; however, HDR procedures often rely on generic needle patterns rather than individualized preplans. Implementing a patient-specific HDR preplan provides an oppo...

The beam output of linacs producing ultra-high dose rates for FLASH radiotherapy (FLASH linacs) can exhibit significant and sometimes unpredictable variations in response to beam parameter adjustments, differing even among identical models. This study aims to...

To develop a broadband echo planar imaging (EPI) for hyperpolarized C-13 imaging on a Siemens Prisma 3T MRI scanner for cross-vendor performance harmonization

A steep dose gradient between the target and surrounding normal brain is the hallmark of Leksell Gamma Knife stereotactic radiosurgery (LGK-SRS). However, the impact of fine-dose grid calculations on dose metrics and prescription dose spill into normal brain...

To quantify the dosimetric impact of hidden input parameters in three inverse optimization (IO) algorithms—IPSA, HIPO, and MCO—for GYN HDR brachytherapy across two applicator types.

To investigate the dependence of tumor metabolism on hyperpolarized (HP) pyruvate concentration, administration order, and time interval in repeated MRI measurements.

This cross-sectional study quantified structural–functional (SC-FC) coupling in chronic tobacco smokers versus non-smokers using multimodal MR imaging, testing whether smoking is associated with altered correspondence between white-matter architecture and res...

Prostate and perineum edema are known issues for prostate brachytherapy. It could significantly impact the dosimetry for prostate HDR implants with needle displacement since there is a 2-3 hour interval between implant and treatment. The purpose of this proje...

AAPM WGTG51 Report 374 emphasizes the importance of field barometer cross-calibration versus a reference barometer prior to reference dosimetry measurements. This work evaluates the validity of single-point calibration across altitudes and whether multi-point...

The primary objective of this study was to develop a generalized deep learning-based dose calculation engine capable of accurate, site-independent dose prediction. By utilizing a beamlet-based input strategy, we aimed to establish a computationally consistent...

Magnetic resonance (MR)–only radiotherapy planning requires accurate synthetic CT (sCT) generation from images acquired using standard clinical MRI simulation protocols. However, MRI acquisition protocols vary substantially across anatomical sites, and many e...

To develop and validate a contour-regulated automated registration framework for correcting motion artifacts and aligning time-resolved scans in liver CT perfusion (CTp) series.

To improve immobilization of Gamma Knife patients' heads by limiting pronation motion through dental fixation, thereby enabling shorter treatment times, more accurate dose delivery, and enhanced patient comfort.

To evaluate the use of image-guided radiation therapy (IGRT) tools and physics plan review practice in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). By identifying barriers to IGRT implementation, this study aims to inform best practices that optimize treatment p...

Weisskoff analysis assesses temporal stability of echo-planar imaging (EPI) in functional MRI (fMRI) by comparing how the temporal coefficient of variation (CoV) scales with ROI size relative to uncorrelated noise (e.g. ideal scaling) to assess unwanted inter...

High–atomic number hafnium oxide (HafO₂) nanoparticles have demonstrated potential as radio-enhancers, but their detectability using standard CT calibration is limited. This work aims to (1) establish CT calibration curves for HafO₂ solutions of known concent...

Investigate the association between neurocognitive function (NCF) and functional connectomics derived from commonly used group-level brain parcellations on patients with brain tumors.

There are many recent advances in linear energy transfer (LET) optimized proton therapy planning, radiation biology, immune therapy, and molecular imaging with the potential to improve the efficacy of radiation oncology. The aim of this talk is to present fea...

While adaptive radiotherapy (ART) is increasingly being adopted into clinical practice, treatment planning, delivery, dose reporting, and clinical trial QA have not yet been standardized for national clinical trials, leaving a gap in ensuring consistent and p...