Author's School

Graduate School of Arts & Sciences

Author's Department/Program

Physics

Language

English (en)

Date of Award

January 2010

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Chair and Committee

Daniel Low

Abstract

Lung cancer has been the leading cause of cancer deaths for decades in the United States. Although radiotherapy is one of the most effective treatments, side effects from error in delivery of radiation due to organ motion during breathing remain a significant issue. To compensate the breathing motion during the treatment, a free breathing lung motion model, x= x0+αv+βf, was developed and discussed, where x is the position of a piece of tissue located at reference position x0. α is a parameter which characterizes the motion due to local air filling: motion as a function of tidal volume) and β is the parameter that accounts for the motion due to the imbalance of dynamical stress distributions during inspiration and exhalation which cause lung motion hysteresis: motion as a function of airflow). The parameters α and β together provide a quantitative characterization of breathing motion that inherently includes the complex hysteresis interplay. The theoretical foundation of the model was built by investigating the stress distribution inside of a lung and the biomechanical properties of the lung tissues. Accuracy of the model was investigated by using 49 free-breathing patient data sets. Applications of the model in localizing lung cancer, monitoring radiation damage and suppressing artifacts in free-breathing PET images were also discussed. This work supported in part by NIHR01CA096679 and NIHR01CA116712

Comments

Permanent URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.7936/K7Z03684

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