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Annelise Giebeler - MS Research

Annelise Giebeler
agiebeler@mdanderson.org

Project: Patient Specific Monitor Unit Determinations for Patients Receiving Proton Therapy 

Accurate targeting of diseased tissue is crucial for successful external beam radiation therapy; without it reliable delivery of a prescribed dose to the tumor while reducing excess dose to non-diseased tissues is difficult.  One method of improving targeting accuracy is to implant of small radiopaque markers in or near tissue identified for treatment.  Then kilovoltage x-ray imaging is used to shift the patient so that the marker-anatomy alignment matches the treatment plan.  My work has been to examine the feasibility of a specific marker type, small helical gold markers, for this type of use in proton therapy.  To do this we imaged the markers in an anthropomorphic phantom to determine their radiographic visibility using the kilovoltage imaging system in the proton treatment room.  Then, we characterized the markers dosimetric impact using Monte Carlo simulations and radiochromic film measurements.  Our results indicated the markers were radiographically visible and they caused dose perturbations which were greater than 10% of the prescribed dose.

Advisor: Wayne Newhauser, PhD
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