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
Recommended Citation
Zhao, Tianyu, "A Free-Breathing Lung Motion Model" (2010). All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs). 400.
https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/etd/400
Comments
Permanent URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.7936/K7Z03684