background: vancomycin is used abundantly in patients undergoing hsct, especially during neutropenic fever. despite its widespread use little is known about vancomycin pharmacokinetics in hsct patients. we conducted this study to investigate vancomycin pharmacokinetic parameters in our hsct patients and to evaluate current dosing regimen based on trough vancomycin concentrations measurement. me...

The purpose of the study was to investigate the dosimetric effect defining the body structure with various Hounsfield unit (HU) threshold values on the dose distributions of volumetric-modulated arc therapy (VMAT) plans. Twenty patients with prostate cancer and twenty patients with head and neck (H&N) cancer were retrospectively selected. For each patient, the body structure was redefined with ...

Definitive treatment for cervical cancer most often consists of fractionated external beam radiotherapy combined with multi-fraction intracavitary brachytherapy. CT imaging in gynaecological brachytherapy treatment planning has been widely used in the past decade. With the advantages of image-based treatment planning and the commercial treatment planning software tools available, it is possible...

PURPOSE Treatment planning system commissioning is one of the most important parts of the quality assurance system in a working brachytherapy department. Migration to a more sophisticated system is always a step forward for the planning team but careful verification of the workflow and obtained results is mandatory. The question is not only whether the quality and safety of the previous standar...

BACKGROUND Treatment of concurrent gemcitabine and radiotherapy for pancreatic cancer was reported to have a higher rate of severe acute intestinal toxicity. This study evaluated the acute intestinal toxicity in relation to the volume of irradiated small bowel and other factors using dosimetric analyses in pancreatic cancer patients treated with gemcitabine-based chemoradiotherapy. MATERIALS ...

PURPOSE The goal of this study is to determine whether the magnitude of overlap between planning target volume (PTV) and rectum (Rectumoverlap) or PTV and bladder (Bladderoverlap) in prostate cancer volumetric-modulated arc therapy (VMAT) is predictive of the dose-volume relationships achieved after optimization, and to identify predictive equations and cutoff values using these overlap volumes...

OBJECTIVES This study compares the dosimetry and efficiency of two modern radiosurgery [stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS)] modalities for multiple brain metastases [Gamma Knife (GK) and LINAC-based RapidArc/volumetric modulated arc therapy], with a special focus on the comparison of low-dose spread. METHODS Six patients with three or four small brain metastases were used in this study. The size...

.........................................................................................................................................3 Background and purpose.............................................................................................................3 Material and methods ...........................................................................................................

The presence of two intact lungs makes it challenging to reach a tumoricidal dose with hemithoracic pleural intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) in patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) who underwent pleurectomy/decortications or have unresectable disease. We developed an anatomy-based model to predict attainable prescription dose before starting optimization. Fifty-six cli...