Radiology Commons^™

Effect Of Acute Administration Of Angiopoietin-1 In Experimental Traumatic Spinal Cord Injury: Magnetic Resonance Imaging And Neurobehavioral Studies, Chirag B. Patel

Dissertations and Theses (Open Access)

Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a devastating condition that affects people in the prime of their lives. A myriad of vascular events occur after SCI, each of which contributes to the evolving pathology. The primary trauma causes mechanical damage to blood vessels, resulting in hemorrhage. The blood-spinal cord barrier (BSCB), a neurovascular unit that limits passage of most agents from systemic circulation to the central nervous system, breaks down, resulting in inflammation, scar formation, and other sequelae. Protracted BSCB disruption may exacerbate cellular injury and hinder neurobehavioral recovery in SCI.

In these studies, angiopoietin-1 (Ang1), an agent known to reduce …

Dynamic Chemical Shift Imaging For Image-Guided Thermal Therapy, Brian A. Taylor

Dissertations and Theses (Open Access)

Magnetic resonance temperature imaging (MRTI) is recognized as a noninvasive means to provide temperature imaging for guidance in thermal therapies. The most common method of estimating temperature changes in the body using MR is by measuring the water proton resonant frequency (PRF) shift. Calculation of the complex phase difference (CPD) is the method of choice for measuring the PRF indirectly since it facilitates temperature mapping with high spatiotemporal resolution. Chemical shift imaging (CSI) techniques can provide the PRF directly with high sensitivity to temperature changes while minimizing artifacts commonly seen in CPD techniques. However, CSI techniques are currently limited by …

Thoracic Radiotherapy Treatment Planning With Cine Pet/Ct, Adam C. Riegel

Dissertations and Theses (Open Access)

Purpose: Respiratory motion causes substantial uncertainty in radiotherapy treatment planning. Four-dimensional computed tomography (4D-CT) is a useful tool to image tumor motion during normal respiration. Treatment margins can be reduced by targeting the motion path of the tumor. The expense and complexity of 4D-CT, however, may be cost-prohibitive at some facilities. We developed an image processing technique to produce images from cine CT that contain significant motion information without 4D-CT. The purpose of this work was to compare cine CT and 4D-CT for the purposes of target delineation and dose calculation, and to explore the role of PET in target …