Medical Biophysics Commons^™

Ai-Driven Segmentation And Volumetric Response Modeling Of Liver Regions To Radiotherapy, Aashish Chandra Gupta

Dissertations and Theses (Open Access)

In liver-directed radiotherapy (RT), liver regions receiving higher doses typically undergo atrophy while contralateral/adjacent lower-dose regions may exhibit compensatory hypertrophy through regeneration of healthy tissue. Optimizing the RT plan to promote regional hypertrophy while minimizing the risk of developing atrophy has the potential to enhance post-RT liver function and long-term survivorship. However, current clinical practice largely relies on global liver dose-volume metrics during RT-planning, which may obscure favorable dose-response correlation and limit actionable guidance for clinicians. Therefore, we hypothesized that post-RT regional liver response is governed by a combination of region-specific dose-volume and patient clinical features, and that these responses …

The Physics And Biology Of High-Risk Falls: Biomechanical Analysis And Physics Assists In Understanding Why The Threshold For High-Risk Was Lowered To 10 Feet, James Espinosa, Alan Lucerna

Rowan-Virtua Research Day

Background: Recent revisions to the National Guideline for the Field Triage of Injured Patients lowered the high-risk fall threshold from >20 feet  to >10 feet for all ages. Guideline changes are multifactorial and typically reflect epidemiologic registry data, injury severity trends, and systems-level performance feedback. However, biomechanical analysis assists in understanding the importance of the change.

Objective: To demonstrate that a 10-foot fall generates sufficient kinetic energy and deceleration forces to exceed structural tolerance thresholds in multiple human tissues, and to show that fundamental physics independently supports the recent trauma protocol change.

Methods: Application of gravitational motion equations (v = …

Health Effects Of Cadmium And Manganese Exposure On Luteinizing Hormone Levels: A Pilot Study Of Female Infertility, Shatha F. Alhous, Anees A. Al-Hamzawi, Murtadha Sh. Aswood

Al-Bahir

Female infertility occurs for many reasons, some unknown. Exposure to heavy metals is a risk factor that negatively impacts on female reproductive system. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the effect of cadmium Cd and manganese Mn on luteinizing hormone LH levels for females’ infertility. This study included a healthy group (n = 20), primary infertile females (n = 40), and secondary infertile females (n = 20) collected from Al-Zahraa hospital in Najaf center, Iraq. The Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy (AAS) was used to measure the cadmium and manganese concentrations and LH levels were measured by a Maglumi 800 from Snibe …

Clinical Validation Of Perfusion Imaging With Pulmonary Function Test Data Using Voronoi-Based Discretization, Jorge Cisneros, Caleb J. Herrera, Yi-Kuan Liu, Lisa V. Du, Yevgeniy Vinogradskiy, Richard Castillo, Girish Nair, Edward Castillo

Department of Medicine Faculty Papers

Objective.Accurate lung function assessment is essential for diagnosing and managing diseases like chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder, pulmonary emboli, and lung cancer. Single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) provides valuable 3D functional imaging of ventilation and perfusion, but is limited by low spatial resolution, availability, additional radiation, and cost. Alternative methods, including CT-based perfusion (CT-P) and deep learning models, require large datasets to validate results that are often scarce. Pulmonary function tests (PFTs) offer rapid and noninvasive global lung function measures and are clinically widely used. While ventilation correlates well with PFTs, perfusion imaging presents challenges due to complex blood flow and …

Dose Characterization Of Galactic Cosmic Rays In The Human Brain: A Phits-Based Study With A Segmented Anatomical Phantom, Shanice N. Manning

LSU Master's Theses

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) are chronically exposed to a complex space radiation environment composed of galactic cosmic rays (GCR), solar particles, and Earth's trapped radiation. These high-energy particles interact with spacecraft shielding, producing secondary particles that can penetrate inside and deposit energy in sensitive tissues. Although animal studies have been useful in assessing space radiation risks, anatomical and physiological differences limit their applicability to human anatomy especially neuroanatomy. To address this gap, we developed a computational framework to model radiation dose distribution within the human brain using Monte Carlo simulations in Particle and Heavy Ion Transport code …

Investigation Of Subcellular Damage And Long-Term Non-Cancerous Cardiovascular Effects Following Whole-Body Photon Irradiation, Nousha Afshari

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Current radiobiological models focus primarily on nuclear DNA damage and fail to fully explain radiation-induced noncancerous health effects. This dissertation investigates whether non-nuclear subcellular structures contribute to radiation-induced biological damage through experimental biomarker analysis and computational microdosimetry. The central hypothesis posits that whole-body photon irradiation results in subcellular non-nuclear damage, specifically increased circulating mitochondrial DNA concentrations, that correlates with radiation dose and long-term noncancerous effects such as cardiovascular disease.

Specific Aim 1 measured mitochondrial and nuclear DNA concentrations in banked blood samples from 72 Chinese rhesus macaques that previously received whole-body photon irradiation ($0-10$ Gy) from Cobalt-60 or LINAC sources. …

Development Of Lineal Energy Spectrum-Based Biological Effects Models For Protons, Joseph M. Decunha, Fada Guan, David Grosshans, Zhongxing Liao, Dragan Mirkovic, Oleg Vassiliev, Radhe Mohan

Dissertations and Theses (Open Access)

In this dissertation, methods are developed and described to allow for the rapid calculation of microdosimetric spectra (specifically, lineal energy) for protons. SuperTrack, a GPU-accelerated tool for calculation of microdosimetric spectra was developed and is capable of computing lineal energy spectra up to 5000x faster than using Geant4 directly. Proton lineal energy spectra generated by SuperTrack are indistinguishable from those generated by Geant4. With SuperTrack, large libraries of lineal energy spectra for monoenergetic protons spanning 0-300 MeV have been developed. The proton lineal energy spectra calculated by SuperTrack have been compared to experimental measurements made by a tissue equivalent proportional …

Alpha-Synuclein Interaction With Gedunin, Tony Matundura Nyabayo

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

Parkinson’s disease (PD) and other Proteinopathies develop when α-synuclein misfolds and aggregates into toxic amyloids. While existing treatments for PD are primarily focused on managing its symptoms, a viable solution for slowing down the progress of Parkinson’s disease involves targeting the toxic α-synuclein amyloids. Gedunin, a natural inhibitor of heat shock protein 90, has been extensively used to treat malaria. Also, recent research investigations have shed light on its potential beyond malaria therapy, indicating that Gedunin may offer a possible solution for treating a variety of neurodegenerative diseases. Using plate-based assays, we examined how Gedunin influences α-synuclein fibrillation and its …

Influential Factors And Predicting Dose Delivery Accuracy For Imaging And Radiation Oncology Core’S Phantom Program Using Machine Learning, Hunter Mehrens

Dissertations and Theses (Open Access)

IROC’s mission is to help ensure consistent and comparable, high-quality radiotherapy across clinics that participate in national clinical trials. To obtain this mission, IROC’s phantom program provides a third-party end-to-end check of the clinical workflow of a patient receiving radiotherapy. The goal of the phantom audit is to compare the dose delivered to the dose planned by the treatment system ensuring dose delivery accuracy. While IROC’s phantoms are better equipped to catch dose delivery errors compared to a clinic’s QA process, the end-to-end process and reporting of results is time-consuming creating a bottleneck for clinical trial participation. Furthermore, IROC’s passing …

Identification Of Immune-Associated Biomarkers Of Diabetes Nephropathy Tubulointerstitial Injury Based On Machine Learning: A Bioinformatics Multi-Chip Integrated Analysis, Lin Wang, Jiaming Su, Zhongjie Liu, Shaowei Ding, Yaotan Li, Baoluo Hou, Yuxin Hu, Zhaoxi Dong, Jingyi Tang, Hongfang Liu, Weijing Liu

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

BACKGROUND: Diabetic nephropathy (DN) is a major microvascular complication of diabetes and has become the leading cause of end-stage renal disease worldwide. A considerable number of DN patients have experienced irreversible end-stage renal disease progression due to the inability to diagnose the disease early. Therefore, reliable biomarkers that are helpful for early diagnosis and treatment are identified. The migration of immune cells to the kidney is considered to be a key step in the progression of DN-related vascular injury. Therefore, finding markers in this process may be more helpful for the early diagnosis and progression prediction of DN.

METHODS: The …

Evaluation Of An End-To-End Radiotherapy Treatment Planning Pipeline For Prostate Cancer, Mohammad Daniel El Basha, Court Laurence, Carlos Eduardo Cardenas, Julianne Pollard-Larkin, Steven Frank, David T. Fuentes, Falk Poenisch, Zhiqian H. Yu

Dissertations and Theses (Open Access)

Radiation treatment planning is a crucial and time-intensive process in radiation therapy. This planning involves carefully designing a treatment regimen tailored to a patient’s specific condition, including the type, location, and size of the tumor with reference to surrounding healthy tissues. For prostate cancer, this tumor may be either local, locally advanced with extracapsular involvement, or extend into the pelvic lymph node chain. Automating essential parts of this process would allow for the rapid development of effective treatment plans and better plan optimization to enhance tumor control for better outcomes.

The first objective of this work, to automate the treatment …

The Development Of Artificial Intelligence-Based To Ols For Expert Peer Review Of Radiotherapy Treatment Plans, Mary Gronberg

Dissertations and Theses (Open Access)

Creating a patient-specific radiation treatment plan is a time-consuming and operator-dependent manual process. The treatment planner adjusts the planning parameters in a trial-and-error fashion in an effort to balance the competing clinical objectives of tumor coverage and normal tissue sparing. Often, a plan is selected because it meets basic organ at risk dose thresholds for severe toxicity; however, it is evident that a plan with a decreased risk of normal tissue complication probability could be achieved. This discrepancy between “acceptable” and “best possible” plan is magnified if either the physician or treatment planner lacks focal expertise in the disease site. …

Automating The Radiation Therapy Treatment Planning Process For Pediatric Patients With Medulloblastoma, Soleil Hernandez

Dissertations and Theses (Open Access)

Over the past 50 years, pediatric cancer 5-year survival rates increased from 20% to 80% in high-income countries, however, these trends have not been mirrored in low-and-middle-income countries (LMICs). This is due in part to delayed diagnosis, higher rates of advanced disease at presentation and a growing lack of access to high quality medical personnel and technology necessary to deliver complex treatments.

The long-term goal of this study was to alleviate demanding workflows and increase global access to high-quality pediatric radiation therapy by harnessing the power of artificial intelligence to automate the radiation therapy treatment planning process for pediatric patients …

Sexual Dimorphism Of Glomerular Capillary Morphology In Rats, Zackarias Coker

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) progresses faster in males than females; however, the underlying mechanisms remain poorly understood. Sex differences in glomerular capillary morphology has been hypothesized to contribute, in part, to the increased susceptibility to hypertension-induced renal injury and CKD progression in males, but this has not been investigated. The goal of the present study was to assess glomerular capillary morphology in male vs. female rats with intact kidneys and after uninephrectomy (UNX). We hypothesized that glomerular capillary radii (R_CAP) and length (L_CAP) would be greater in male rats.

Male (n=4) and female (n=4) with intact …

Quantifying The Magnitude Of To Tal Dose Deviation Caused By Various Sources Of Error Among Iroc Phantom Irradiation Results, Sharbacha S. Edward

Dissertations and Theses (Open Access)

The Imaging and Radiation Oncology Core (IROC) phantoms are used as an end-to-end test of an institution’s radiotherapy processes, and for clinical trial credentialing. Phantoms are treated like patients, and evaluation of the doses received by the thermoluminescent dosimeters (TLDs) inside the phantom, reflects the accuracy with which an institution can image, plan and irradiate a phantom or patient. Recent phantom results show that among the hundreds of various IROC phantoms irradiated annually, 8-17% of institutions fail this test. The purpose of this work was to investigate the various types of errors that may occur during the treatment process and …

Absolute Quantification Of Tc-99m Activity Distributions Using A Planar Molecular Breast Imaging Commercial System, Benjamin P. Lopez

Dissertations and Theses (Open Access)

Molecular breast imaging (MBI) uses two dedicated-breast semiconductor detectors to visualize the preferential uptake of technetium-99m-sestamibi (^99mTc-sestamibi) by breast cancer cells relative to surrounding benign breast tissues. Clinically, MBI is used primarily as a supplementary tool to standard-of-care mammography because of its improved detection of breast cancers, especially in women with mammographically-dense breasts. Because of a lack of image corrections, MBI applications are currently limited to qualitative evaluations of relative pixel intensities between image regions with suspected lesions and normal tissue.

The objective of this dissertation was to use Monte Carlo simulations to better characterize the MBI imaging …

Seizure Prediction In Epilepsy Patients, Gary Dean Cravens

NSU REACH and IPE Day

Purpose/Objective: Characterize rigorously the preictal period in epilepsy patients to improve the development of seizure prediction techniques. Background/Rationale: 30% of epilepsy patients are not well-controlled on medications and would benefit immensely from reliable seizure prediction. Methods/Methodology: Computational model consisting of in-silico Hodgkin-Huxley neurons arranged in a small-world topology using the Watts-Strogatz algorithm is used to generate synthetic electrocorticographic (ECoG) signals. ECoG data from 18 epilepsy patients is used to validate the model. Unsupervised machine learning is used with both patient and synthetic data to identify potential electrophysiologic biomarkers of the preictal period. Results/Findings: The model has shown states corresponding to …

Deep Convolutional Neural Networks For Accurate Diagnosis Of Covid-19 Patients Using Chest X-Ray Image Databases From Italy, Canada, And The Usa, Amgad A. Salama, Samy H. Darwish, Samir M. Abdel-Mageed, Radwa A. Meshref, Ehab I. Mohamed

The University of Louisville Journal of Respiratory Infections

Introduction: Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), famously known as COVID-19, has quickly become a global pandemic. Chest X-ray (CXR) imaging has proven reliable, fast, and cost-effective for identifying COVID-19 infections, which proceeds to display atypical unilateral patchy infiltration in the lungs like typical pneumonia. We employed the deep convolutional neural network (DCNN) ResNet-34 to detect and classify CXR images from patients with COVID-19 and Viral Pneumonia and Normal Controls.

Methods: We created a single database containing 781 source CXR images from four different international sub-databases: the Società Italiana di Radiologia Medica e Interventistica (SIRM), the GitHub Database, the …

Thermal Properties Of 18f-Fdg Uptake And Imaging In Positron Emission Tomography Scans Of Cancerous Cells, Carleigh R. Eagle

PANDION: The Osprey Journal of Research and Ideas

Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scans can utilize a radioactive tracer, in this case 2-deoxy2-[fluorine-18] fluoro-D-glucose (¹⁸F-FDG), to visualize malignant tumors in cancer patients. The uptake was compared to glucose to understand the difference in thermal properties, which contribute to the ability to image the cancerous cells. The uptake of ¹⁸F-FDG by cancer cells and the imaging process of positron emission tomography were reviewed from a thermodynamic perspective. Gastrointestinal and neurological imaging techniques were reviewed to understand the role of PET imaging in different areas of the human body.

Advancement Of A 3d Computational Phantom And Its Age Scaling Methodologies For Retrospective Dose Reconstruction Studies, Aashish Gupta

Dissertations and Theses (Open Access)

We have used a 3D age-scalable computational phantom for over two decades for retrospective dose reconstruction studies of childhood cancer survivors (CCS) treated with 2D historic radiotherapy (RT). However, our phantom and its age scaling functions (ASF) must be updated so that it can be used in studies that include survivors treated with contemporary RT. We aimed to implement our phantom and its age scaling functions in DICOM format and determine the feasibility of applying our ASFs to accurately scale the whole-body CT-based anatomies.

In the implementation study, we developed Python scripts that model the phantom and ASFs in a …

Medical Schools Ignore The Nature Of Consciousness At Great Cost, Anoop Kumar

Journal of Wellness

The essential question of the relationship between consciousness and matter is ignored in medical school curricula, leading to a machine-like view of the human being that contributes to physician burnout and intellectual dissatisfaction. The evidence suggesting that the brain may not be the seat of consciousness is generally ignored to preserve the worldview of the primacy of matter. By investigating new frameworks detailing the nature of consciousness at different levels of hierarchy, we can bring intellectual rigor to a once opaque subject that supports a fundamental reality about our experience: We are human beings, not only human bodies.

Implications Of The Quantum Dna Model For Information Sciences, F. Matthew Mihelic

Faculty Publications

The DNA molecule can be modeled as a quantum logic processor, and this model has been supported by pilot research that experimentally demonstrated non-local communication between cells in separated cell cultures. This modeling and pilot research have important implications for information sciences, providing a potential architecture for quantum computing that operates at room temperature and is scalable to millions of qubits, and including the potential for an entanglement communication system based upon the quantum DNA architecture. Such a system could be used to provide non-local quantum key distribution that could not be blocked by any shielding or water depth, would …

Magnetic Vector Potential Manipulation Of Majorana Fermions In Dna Quantum Logic, F. Matthew Mihelic

Faculty Publications

In the quantum logic of the DNA molecule, electrons are held and conducted coherently as spinless Cooper pairs and are shielded from electromagnetic energy by a Faraday cage effect of the double lipid bilayer of the nuclear membrane. The magnetic vector potential generated by cellular depolarization can synchronize logical activity in portions of the DNA molecule by affecting spin directions of appropriately oriented spinless electrons via the Aharonov-Bohm effect, but is not blocked by that Faraday cage effect. Within the logically and thermodynamically reversible chiral enantiomeric symmetry of the deoxyribose moieties the decoherent transition of Cooper pair to Dirac pair …

Remotely Controlled Enzyme Behavior Using Localized Thermal Gradients, Sarah Brown

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

No existing model describes an identified special case of enzyme behavior when directly stimulated with thermal energy via an RF field.

The ability to remotely influence cellular functions and outcomes is a new approach to targeted medicine. Nano-medicine and biotechnology are the future of medical diagnostics and treatment. The ability to remotely influence cellular functions and outcomes is a new approach to targeted medicine. Direct heating of an enzyme vs bulk heating changes the enzyme activity.

I tested how direct transfer of thermal energy changes rates of enzyme reactions. We created samples of enzymes, attached to ferrous (magnetic) nano-particles, and …

Hyperpolarized Carbon-13 Magnetic Resonance Measurements Of Tissue Perfusion And Metabolism, Keith Michel

Dissertations and Theses (Open Access)

Hyperpolarized Magnetic Resonance Imaging (HP MRI) is an emerging modality that enables non-invasive interrogation of cells and tissues with unprecedented biochemical detail. This technology provides rapid imaging measurements of the activity of a small quantity of molecules with a strongly polarized nuclear magnetic moment. This polarization is created in a polarizer separate from the imaging magnet, and decays continuously towards a non-detectable thermal equilibrium once the imaging agent is removed from the polarizer and administered by intravenous injection. Specialized imaging strategies are therefore needed to extract as much information as possible from the HP signal during its limited lifetime.

In …

Modeling Anatomic Changes For Adaptive Radiotherapy In Locally Advanced Lung Cancer Patient Population, James Alexander Kavanaugh

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Anatomic changes occurring mid-treatment for patients undergoing radiation therapy for locally advanced lung cancer can degrade the quality of the intended treatment plan. These changes include tumor regression, geometric misalignment, and lung density changes (atelectasis and pleural effusion), and are visible on the daily 3D cone beam CT (CBCT). To maintain the intended treatment quality, adaptive radiotherapy (ART) can be employed to modify the treatment plan to account for these anatomic changes. However, the evaluation on when to adapt is currently completed manually by the treating clinicians, resulting in a subjective and inconsistent application. To address these limitations, a series …

Development Of Fully Balanced Ssfp And Computer Vision Applications For Mri-Assisted Radiosurgery (Mars), Jeremiah Sanders

Dissertations and Theses (Open Access)

Prostate cancer is the second most common cancer in men and the second-leading cause of cancer death in men. Brachytherapy is a highly effective treatment option for prostate cancer, and is the most cost-effective initial treatment among all other therapeutic options for low to intermediate risk patients of prostate cancer. In low-dose-rate (LDR) brachytherapy, verifying the location of the radioactive seeds within the prostate and in relation to critical normal structures after seed implantation is essential to ensuring positive treatment outcomes.

One current gap in knowledge is how to simultaneously image the prostate, surrounding anatomy, and radioactive seeds within the …

A Short Remark On Multipurpose Laser Therapy “Helios” In Ukraine And Its Potential Application For Treatment Of Neurology Disorders, Florentin Smarandache, Volodymyr Krasnoholovets, Victor Christianto, Rizha Vitania, The Houw Liong

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

However, a truly multipurpose laser therapy method is very rarely available. Here we introduce a multipurpose laser therapy device in Ukraine, which is capable to take care a multitude of diseases. It is called “Helios”, by one of us (VK). We also give a case where a patient who suffered from Covid-19 has been treated successfully until he is recovered to healthy condition. In the last section we also discuss potential future application of Helios for other fields; i.e. neurology disorders.

Evaluation Of Ventilation Assistance For Improving Respiratory Reproducibility In Radiation Therapy, Cameron J. Sprowls

LSU Master's Theses

Background: Respiratory motion affects all tumor sites in the thorax and abdomen. Variations of the respiratory pattern cause variations of the tumor motion which can result in differences between the planned and delivered dose distributions. Previous breathing guidance techniques have been investigated to improve respiratory reproducibility; however, ventilation assistance has not been investigated. We evaluated using bi-level positive airway pressure (BIPAP) ventilation assistance for improving respiratory reproducibility in patients with tumor sites impacted by respiratory motion.

Methods: Written informed consent was obtained for 10 patients currently undergoing radiation therapy treatment. Patients participated in sessions over their course of treatment, which …

Dynamic Light Scattering Optical Coherence Tomography To Probe Motion Of Subcellular Scatterers., Nico J J Arezza, Marjan Razani, Michael C Kolios

Medical Biophysics Publications

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is used to provide anatomical information of biological systems but can also provide functional information by characterizing the motion of intracellular structures. Dynamic light scattering OCT was performed on intact, control MCF-7 breast cancer cells and cells either treated with paclitaxel to induce apoptosis or deprived of nutrients to induce oncosis. Autocorrelations (ACs) of the temporal fluctuations of OCT intensity signals demonstrate a significant decrease in decorrelation time after 24 h in both the paclitaxel-treated and nutrient-deprived cell groups but no significant differences between the two groups. The acquired ACs were then used as input for …