Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Impact Of Immunotherapy On The Survival Of Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma Patients: An Analysis Of The National Cancer Database, Saber A. Amin

Theses & Dissertations

Pancreatic adenocarcinoma (PDAC) represents 7.2% of all cancer deaths, and by 2030, it will become the second leading cause of death due to cancer. The median overall survival (OS) is 17-23 months in resectable and 4-6 months in metastatic PC [8-9]. The 5-year survival of resectable PC is 22%, and unresectable PC is 8%. A majority of patients treated with standard treatments such as surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy eventually succumb to the disease due to widespread micrometastases at the time of diagnosis. Due to the minimal effect of the current treatments, novel treatment strategies such as immunotherapeutics have been …

Characterization Of Treatment Planning System Photon Beam Modeling Errors In Iroc Houston Phantom Irradiations, Mallory Glenn

Dissertations & Theses (Open Access)

In radiation therapy, proper commissioning of the treatment planning system’s (TPS) dose calculation algorithm is critical because any errors in this process impact all treatment plans prepared in the system. Previously, TPS errors have been identified as a major cause for poor phantom irradiation performance, which may also mean that patients are treated suboptimally. The purpose of this work was to investigate the TPS beam modeling developed by the radiotherapy community to understand where inconsistencies may arise, which variables are most susceptible to variations, and in what way changing these variables can alter dose calculations.

Using the Imaging and Radiation …

A Comparison Between Rectal Dose In Prostate Radiotherapy Patients Treated With Spaceoar Hydrogel Present Versus Patients Treated Without Spaceoar Hydrogel., David Desano

Culminating Experience Projects

Introduction: External beam radiation therapy is a common treatment option for prostate cancer patients with localized disease. Radiation-induced side effects associated with the rectum can impact a patient’s ability to complete treatment or affect the quality of life years after radiation treatment. Spaceoar hydrogel has been developed to reduce radiation dose to nearby pelvis structures, and therefore decreasing potential side effects.

Methods: A total of 20 patients who received definitive radiation therapy to the prostate and seminal vesicles were selected and placed into 2 groups (10 spaceoar, 10 non-spaceoar). The individuals’ age ranged from 60 to 79 years old with …

Towards Optimizing Quality Assurance Outcomes Of Knowledge-Based Radiation Therapy Treatment Plans Using Machine Learning, Phillip Douglas Hardenbergh Wall

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Knowledge-based planning (KBP) techniques have been shown to provide improvements in plan quality, consistency, and efficiency for advanced radiation therapies such as volumetric modulated arc therapy (VMAT). While the potential clinical benefits of KBP methods are generally well known, comparatively less is understood regarding the impact of using these systems on resulting plan complexity and pre-treatment quality assurance (QA) measurements, especially for in-house KBP systems. Therefore, the overarching purpose of this work was to assess QA implications with using an in-house KBP system and explore data-driven methods for mitigating increased plan complexity and QA error rates without compromising dosimetric plan …

Novel Detection And Treatment Strategies For Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma, Joseph Carmicheal

Theses & Dissertations

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is one of the most lethal malignancies with an estimated 5-year survival rate of less than 9%. The high lethality of PDAC is due to two primary reasons: the discovery of PDAC at later stages, with locally invasive or metastatic disease present at the time of initial diagnosis as well as the lack of efficacious therapeutic interventions that significantly impact survival. In this dissertation, we sought to discover and test novel detection and treatment strategies for PDAC. Firstly, serum EVs were investigated as potential non-invasive liquid biopsy biomarkers, to serve as a means of early cancer …

Human Factor Associations With Safety Events In Radiation Therapy, Sheri M. Weintraub

Health Sciences Program Student Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

One important connection for all human beings is that we have a shared need for health care and are at some risk of experiencing medical error. Errors documented in the field of radiation therapy have included tragic levels of suffering and even death from preventable mistakes. Efforts to improve patient safety include an approach called incident learning that makes use of information about known errors to inform safetyimprovement strategy. The complexity of human contributing factors challenges those safety improvements. The problem addressed by this dissertation study is that radiation therapy puts patients at risk, and the incident learning systems designed …

Exploring The Roles Of Long Non-Coding Rnas In Glioblastoma Tumor Recurrence And Therapy Resistance, Christian Tyler Stackhouse

All ETDs from UAB

ABSTRACT Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most common and devastating primary CNS brain tumor with a median survival time of around 14 months. Most patients succumb to re-current disease which is often more malignant than the primary tumor and is frequently therapy resistant. There have not been significant advances in the treatment of GBM despite decades of research. This is partly due to the lack of accurate preclinical models and of the focus on primary rather than recurrent tumors. We created a 350 gene custom GBM-specific panel which contains 16 molecular signatures including molecular sub-typing signatures. We have demonstrated concordance of …