Published in MPW, 20 Jan 2014
Scientists in the US have demonstrated that Cerenkov light emitted during radiation therapy on a live animal can reveal the radiation dose being administered. The technique could enable doctors to make sure that the correct radiation doses are administered to humans undergoing radiation therapy (J. Biomed. Opt. 18 110504).
It is important to carefully regulate the amount of radiation that a patient receives when undergoing radiation therapy, to minimize the risk of side effects. Unfortunately, knowing exactly how much radiation enters the body is tricky. Normally, treatment is planned according to computer simulations of the body, generated with CT scans. One or two times during a treatment course, a patient can also have a detector inserted into them to estimate the amount of incident radiation. But these methods aren’t foolproof: a patient could lose weight, for instance, leading to a relatively high dose. […]
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