radiation treatment plans because they can be used to check the accuracy of equipment and computer software used to obtain four-dimensional computed tomography (4D CT) scans. 4D CT allows physicians to locate tumors and create a three-dimensional model of a patient's internal organs that accounts for bodily movement over the time course of the scan. The three-dimensional model, in turn, guides treatment modalities such as intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) in which several radiation beams are turned on and off and their intensity altered depending on the organs that the beams pass through.

Low believes one of the most important consequences of their research is a new understanding of how mobile lung tumors are. "What we are finding by looking at this problem in a very concentrated way is that the position of a tumor changes every day in the chest cavity," Low says. "The total quantity of air patients have in their lungs is different from day to day, and that affects where the tumor is. Breathing function is affected by whether patients have been walking or not, whether they have full stomachs or empty stomachs or whether they are nervous or relaxed. These things can have a profound effect on the quality of radiation therapy unless we can take into account how they affect tumor position."

In the long term, Low says the research group would like to understand how disease processes such as asthma and emphysema in addition to cancer could be diagnosed or monitored based on changes in a patient's breathing pattern. "If we follow a patient's breathing pattern over time, we may see that a part of the lung that was stationary or moving rigidly is now expanding and contracting," Low says. "As we gain more knowledge about breathing motion, we can understand whether such changes indicate improvement or worsening of the condition."

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Contact: Gwen Ericson
ericsong@wustl.edu
314-286-0141
Washington University School of Medicine
12-Mar-2007


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