Auckland Radiation Oncology has recently participated in research with the University of Otago, with regard to the prevention of severe skin reactions during radiation therapy by applying a thin transparent silicone dressing to the skin from the first day of treatment.

Talking about the 'C' word - World Cancer Day February 4th 2014



 

Auckland Radiation Oncology has been designated as the first reference site in the Southern Hemisphere for RaySearch’s RayStation planning system.

There are patients with stage I–III non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who are not suitable for curative radical chemoradiation therapy. There are patients with an isolated solitary extracranial metastasis who have improved outcomes compared with those with cranial or multiple metastases. Patients of good performance status receiving moderate dose radiation therapy have improved survival. Two regimens of moderate dose chemoradiation therapy for such patients were compared in a randomized phase II trial.

The aim of this pharmaco-epidemiological study was to evaluate the prevalence of oropharyngeal candidiasis (OPC) in cancer patients treated with chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy.

Prostate segmentation on MR images attracted greater research interest in recent years, with the introduction of conformal radiotherapy (CRT) and intensity modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) for prostate cancer. Accurate delineation of tumor target volume and organs at risk becomes increasingly important in radiotherapy treatment planning. However, it is difficult to perform fully automated segmentation in T2-weighted images because the signal intensity within the prostate is inhomogeneous as it reflects the underlying characteristics of the glandular tissue [1]. The interface between the prostate and the rectum and bladder is not always clear.

Further to the development of three-dimensional (3D) conformal, intensity-modulated, image-guided, adaptive radiation therapy, major changes have occurred in the last three decades in the treatment planning of nonmetastatic prostate cancer. These techniques have significantly improved treatment precision, allowing for greater sparing of critical organ and delivery of escalated doses of radiation to the target volume.

The majority of commercial radiotherapy treatment planning systems requires planners to iteratively adjust the plan parameters in order to find a satisfactory plan. This iterative trial-and-error nature of radiotherapy treatment planning results in an inefficient planning process and in order to reduce such inefficiency, plans can be accepted without achieving the best attainable quality.

We propose a quality assessment method based on data envelopment analysis (DEA) to address this inefficiency. This method compares a plan of interest to a set of past delivered plans and searches for evidence of potential further improvement.

To quantitatively evaluate radiation-induced impaired oesophageal transit with oesophageal transit scintigraphy and to assess the relationships between acute oesophagitis symptoms and dysmotility.