University of Florida

Mammography (compressed 2D) and MRI (uncompressed 3D) capture breast tissue under different conditions, complicating tumor localization across modalities. To bridge this gap, we developed a customizable physical platform to simulate clinical breast compressio...

Dedicated Eyeline is considered industry standard for ocular proton therapy (OPT). Due to relatively low incidence of intra-ocular malignancies, Eyeline implementations of OPT are cost-prohibitive for many interested institutions. Among small number of gantry...

To report on the success of an innovative academic program which provides an educational opportunity for ABR-certified medical physicists interested in obtaining a Ph.D. degree while remaining employed, allowing them to engage more actively in research activi...

Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology Physics

Therapy Physics

A cost- and revenue-shared model is an implementable solution to establish a sustainable, financially-sound medical physics graduate program allowing for proper long-term planning and consistent growth while assuring high quality education and training of stu...

To develop a library of 3D computational, tissue-representative models incorporating physiologically relevant microvascular network patterns for calculating local alpha particle and electron dosimetry effects. It is hypothesized that to compute scale-accurate...

To develop tetrahedral mesh-based tissue models at the macro and micro-scale of the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) adult female mesh-type reference computational phantom (MRCP) breast inclusive of tissue-specific vasculature models...

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...

To determine the appropriateness of using an anti-scatter grid in pediatric diagnostic fluoroscopy.

In comprehensive motion management (CMM), Elekta Unity MR-Linac uses cine-MRI to monitor intra-fraction target motion. Due to the lack of efficient tools to determine patient-specific treatment margin, an isotropic GTV-to-PTV margin of 5 mm is used for all li...

Congenital heart defects are the most common type of birth defect, and their management often requires lifelong medical care. Interventional cardiology procedures frequently rely on imaging modalities that use ionizing radiation, potentially exposing pediatri...

Radiation Dose Index Monitoring Systems (RDIMs) can report and track estimated organ and effective doses from CT scans. However, the methods to estimate these doses are not standardized. The purpose of this initial study was to assess the feasibility of perfo...

In the preclinical phase of radiopharmaceutical development, minipigs are frequently used to evaluate radiation-induced toxicity prior to human translation. Among normal organs, the kidney is a critical dose-limiting organ due to its roles in filtration, excr...

The Mayo Clinic Florida microdosimetric kinetic model (MCF MKM) provides highly accurate relative biological effectiveness (RBE) calculations for carbon ion radiation therapy (CIRT), but its clinical use is limited by extreme memory and computational demands...

Online adaptive prostate SIB treatment on the Unity MR-Linac is challenged by the limited robustness of deformable image registration (DIR)-based contour propagation. This study investigates the use of a deep learning (DL) dose prediction model to guide the d...

To develop an open-source universal software for benchmarking signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) in annual fluoroscopy evaluations. This method provides an objective and reproducible measure of image quality as an alternative to qua...

To eliminate the need for CT scans in abdominal MR-Linac treatments by determining and tabulating organ electron densities (EDs) based on patient age and sex. Resultantly, these results promote simpler workflow, costing less time, patient dose, and expenditur...

Early prediction of distant recurrence in early-stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients may assist clinical decision making. Recent studies demonstrated hardly any benefit while adding systemic therapy to SBRT, and identification of patients at high...

For radiopharmaceuticals emitting high linear energy transfer (LET) particles, such as alpha particles, the spleen can receive substantial localized doses due to its reticuloendothelial function. To capture dose heterogeneity, this study aims to develop three...

To evaluate the impact of Monaco sequencing parameters on monitor units per fraction (MU/Fx), plan quality, and plan optimization time for liver SBRT treated on the Elekta Unity MR-linac.

In prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA)-targeted radiopharmaceutical therapy for metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer, salivary glands often receive unintended high absorbed doses and are considered dose-limiting organs. For radiopharmaceutica...

To develop tetrahedral mesh-type phantoms of the female and male beagle dog and perform Monte Carlo (MC) radiation transport simulations to compute specific absorbed fractions (SAFs) for monoenergetic photons, electrons and alpha particles. These canine phant...

Ensuring precise delivery of radiotherapy is paramount, especially in high dose rate settings where small deviations can create large, unplanned doses, jeopardizing patient safety and treatment outcome. Current dosimetry and QA methods operate on signals anal...

Current Y-90 radioembolization (RE) standard dosimetry assumes homogeneous microsphere distribution, ignoring patient-specific vasculature heterogeneity. We developed a framework to reproduce and augment patient-specific hepatic vascular models from cone-beam...

The Gamma-Emitter Contamination Assessment Tool (GECAT) is a software application designed to perform in-field radiological triage. The application relies on detector count rate efficiency data generated by performing Monte Carlo radiation transport on digita...

Ultra-high dose rate (FLASH) proton therapy generates positron-emitting radioisotopes, including C-11, O-15, and F-18, which decay via β⁺ emission. Each annihilation produces a pair of 511 keV photons naturally entangled in momentum and polarization. We evalu...

Real-time, high-precision monitoring of tumor anatomy and microenvironment remains a critical unmet need in radiotherapy. Recent experimental studies have demonstrated that 511 keV photon pairs produced during positron annihilation are quantum entangled. Here...

Daily cone-beam CT (CBCT) is widely used in adaptive proton therapy; however, scatter artifacts can degrade image quality and introduce proton dose calculation inaccuracies. We developed a region-of-interest (ROI)–guided Swin-Transformer deep learning (DL) ne...

Simple clinical criteria for deep inspiration breath-hold (DIBH) eligibility in left-sided whole-breast radiotherapy, such as the ability to sustain a 20-30 second breath-hold, are commonly used but do not reliably predict dosimetric benefit. Robust assessmen...

Following radiopharmaceutical administration, absorbed doses can be estimated by coupling radionuclide S values with cumulated activity. For alpha-emitting radiopharmaceuticals, S values should be established at a microscale level to account for heterogeneous...

Physics plan and chart review is one of the most effective QA processes to identify high-severity errors in radiotherapy treatments; mastering it is crucial for our residents. However, exposure to such errors during training is limited, making it challenging...

In the rapidly developing field of radiopharmaceuticals, the skeleton poses a uniquely daunting challenge to any effort to safely employ these powerful tools. The skeleton’s wide distribution throughout the body as well as its variability make dose difficult...

The skeleton is of particular concern in radiation dosimetry, because it contains key target tissues for radiogenic cancers, including red bone marrow (RBM), associated with leukemia risk. However, skeletal dosimetry remains challenging due to the complex mic...

In preclinical studies, animal models are widely used to estimate absorbed doses following the administration of radiopharmaceuticals. Mice are the most commonly used models; however, their small body size can lead to biased dose estimates when translating mo...

Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology Physics

With the Joint Commission’s (TJC) establishment of fluoroscopy-specific standards (effective January 1, 2019), typical exposure rates and low-contrast performance became required performance evaluations during annual surveys for all accredited institutions. T...

Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology Physics